In Search of Adequate Protection for Telecom Consumers

Over the years, much has been said about the need for service providers in the Nigerian telecommunications industry to provide the necessary service quality that gives the consumers value for their money. The industry regulator on its part has taken some interventions in beating the operators to this line; yet, the issue of poor quality of service, poor customer relations, inadequate or lack of provisions for the physically challenged, among others remain contentious in the Nigerian telecom sector.

This perhaps, explains why Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in 2009, inaugurated the Industry Consumer Advisory Forum to work in an advisory capacity to the Commission regarding the interests and concerns of consumers of ICT products and services including persons with disabilities and the elderly, to ensure protection from unfair practices. Since inauguration, the forum chaired by the Director General of the Consumer Protection Council, Mrs. Ify Umenyi has been meeting on the task given to them and probably advising the commission as expected.

However, the forum recently took a bold and commendable step, coming out for the first time in almost three years of its existence to meet with all stakeholders in the industry to brainstorm on ways out of the industry challenges. With the theme: Service Delivery in the Telecoms Industry: Milestones, Problems and Prospects’, the forum opened a new horizon in the quest for solutions to the telecom sector problem.

QoS: The Big Issue
Expectedly, at such a forum the issue of service quality would be at the top of the agenda and this was why the first paper for the day dwelt on the role of the service providers in satisfying the customers. Presenting a paper titled: ‘Providing Customer Centric Services-The role of Service Providers’, Engineer Titi Omo-Ettu, a veteran in the ICT industry and President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) noted unequivocally that service providers’ claim of meeting the customers needs first rather than the normal drivers of profit are mere ‘lip service’.

According to him, signs of absence of costumer-centric services, which involves doing what the customers want at all cost, is manifesting in proliferation of promos, which the service providers are now using to woo customers. For him, this has been a wrong strategy because “the best way to make profit is to do what the customer wants.”
While acknowledging that post liberalization of the Nigerian telecom sector has brought improved network access and improved network expansion rate, he agreed that call completion rate has remained poor even as customer relations by the service providers are not at the level it should be.

But then, Omo-Ettu is of the view that operators alone should not be blamed for the challenges, because naturally, every operator or service provider wants to satisfy his customer. However, he said the operators’ desire for customer centricity is being challenged by survival challenges. This, he attributed to the fact that the operating environment in the country, though viable, remains very tough, citing instances of some operators who could not survive the tough environment and had to die prematurely.

Besides, he noted that the country remains a difficult research environment, which makes study into consumer needs fairly difficult. Based on this, he said a number of market researches that have been published are products of ‘guesstimates’.

Against this backdrop, he called on the regulator to back individual researchers so as to get genuine industry reports, because according to him, only a research backed by the regulator can produce real results. Moreover, he canvassed a reward for any operator that provides customer centric services as a means of encouragement. But most importantly, he said outright sanction should be meted out to any operator who falter in providing customer centric services.

Are Promos in the Interest of the Consumers?
Germane to the forum was also the issue of promotions and supposed reward programmes by service providers. This became another issued that had to be thrashed and brought to a proper perspective. For Mr. Henry Uwadiae, Assistant Director, Regulation and Monitoring, National Lottery Regulatory Commission, there is still an air of doubt cast over many promos going on in the industry as the commission is finding it difficult to get the people who are being claimed to have won for verification. He indeed established the fact that many promos and rewards programmes are actually not in the interest of the consumers but profit inclined. According to him, many unsuspecting consumers are being deceived by the contents of promo adverts which pushes them to buy or do something with the hope of winning certain amount of money. Earlier, Engineer Omo-Ettu had also admitted that many operators now resort to promos to woo customers, which in essence, is aimed at driving profits.

In a normal practice, Uwadiae said, promos or reward programmes are not expected to be attached to any condition for the consumers. Again, he said telecoms operators have always hide under the claim that NCC or CPC has licensed them for one promo or the other to evade the commission’s scrutiny. However, this may be the end to such pranks as he said the three regulators: NCC, CPC and the NLRC are now closing ranks to regulate promos in the industry in ensuring that whoever is doing promo is actually following the laid down rules and regulations.

Protecting the Interest of the Disables

In fulfilling the mandate of ICAF, the forum also gave an ample opportunity for people with disabilities to push for their rights in the telecom industry. To do justice to this was the President of National Disability Empowerment Forum (NADEF) Dr. Chris Nwanoro, who lamented that the Nigeria telecom industry has been unfriendly to persons with disabilities. In his speech titled: ‘Are Service Providers Becoming More Unfriendly to Persons with Disabilities?’, Nwanoro wondered if people with disabilities were actually precluded from enjoying the services of the industry given the lack of provision by the service providers to meet their peculiar needs.

Citing examples of countries like South Africa, Tunisia, Angola, among others where special attention are given to PWDs by their service providers, the NADEF President noted that though the NCC has been trying in this regard, it was not enough. In South Africa, for instance, he said the telecom service providers procure telephones with access technology for the enjoyment of their fellow citizens adding that Vodacom, one of the operators in the country, sells phones that are preinstalled with Talks- a screen-reading software to their blind customers in order to make them use the phones independently. He also cited Tunisia where all telecom offices have disability desk to cater to the interest of the disables. All these, he said are non-existent in the Nigeria telecom industry.
He therefore recommended that all telecom service providers should have a disability desk in every of their zonal office to take care of the concerns of persons with disabilities. He also urged the government to put textual tags on their websites and make use of less pictures so as to make their information accessible to those who use access technology or screen readers and screen enlargement programmes.

Moving Forward
Having harnessed opinion from different quarters on challenges facing the industry, the regulator, NCC, fully armed with these facts is now set to take action on them. According to Mrs. Mary Uduma, the Director Consumer Affairs Bureau, who is also the regulator’s representative in the ICAF board, all the issues raised would form the policy thrust of the Commission in the New Year. And based on this she expressed the hope that telecom consumers in the country would have better experiences going forward even as the commission strive to ensure that their interests are protected always.