The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has pledged its support for the Australian Communications and Media Authority inquiry into customer service in the telecommunications industry.

The Acting Ombudsman Simon Cleary has written to the ACMA Chairman Chris Chapman, saying the TIO looked forward to working with and contributing to the inquiry, which was announced last week

Mr Cleary said for some time the TIO had been concerned at the high number of complaints relating to simple customer service or complaint-handling issues. ``Those concerns led to our public connect.resolve campaign, launched in late 2008, which sought to highlight customer experiences in this area, and to encourage industry to refocus on customers and their experiences,’’ he said.

The connect.resolve campaign reflected an overall stabilisation of complaint numbers after almost 18 months of sustained growth. And an update report, released earlier this month, showed that in the six months immediately after the campaign, overall complaints declined by 7%. Seven of the 10 service providers highlighted in the report improved their performance.

Mr Cleary said the results were encouraging, but customer service and complaint handling continued to make up a third of TIO complaint issues.

``While these types of complaints fell at a similar rate to our overall complaint numbers, we are yet to see a significant reduction in these simple but fundamental issues,’’ he said.

For further information, please phone the TIO’s Communications Manager, John DuBois, on (03) 8600 8378 or 0417 559287. The connect.resolve update can be accessed at http://www.tio.com.au/Members/connect-resolve/ConnectResolveUpdateReport.pdf