Customer service quality

Information and customer service is provided by all telecommunications operators to their customers. There are no particular provisions on the organisation of customer service, but the services offered and their pricing greatly depend on the service provider itself.

At the early stage of choosing a service provider, the consumer ought to think it over what kind of customer service is needed and what role it plays in the overall service provided by the telecommunications operator. Good customer service is a competitive advantage to the operator.

Self-service and websites provided by telecommunications operators

Operators' websites are of great help in problem situations. There you will find information on services and their pricing and on terms of agreement. Instructions and setups for the use of different services are usually available on the websites.

Most operators have also created on their website a bank of frequently asked questions, where an answer to the commonest questions and problems can easily be found. Some operators also keep a chat room which may provide help.

Particularly mobile operators usually provide their customers an opportunity for self-service on their websites. The customer may register to the self-service whenever wanted by means of a user name and password obtained from the operator. Through the self-service pages it is usually possible to command or revoke certain additional services, change type of subscription, monitor the accrual of the bill and to browse itemized billing of calls.

E-mail and web forms

E-mail and web forms are good tools for communication, if an answer to a problem cannot be found on the web pages and the matter is not urgent. Most operators announce on their website how soon an answer to an e-mail or web communication can be expected under normal circumstances.

On a web form such items are usually made obligatory that are necessary in order that the operator may give an answer. In a normal e-mail message the problem should be described as precisely as possible. If a certain subscription or service is concerned, the sender's contact information should be included.

Service by phone

In urgent problem situations the operator's telephone service is the best solution. Many operators have, in addition to their proper customer service number, a help desk type technical customer service and a separate number for notices of defects.

It is worth while checking the phone numbers of customer service and information from the operator concerned. If the customer service number is a pay number, the queuing is usually equally charged at normal rates.

There are no provisions on the answering times of operators' telephone services regarding maximum delays or such. The congestion in services varies much depending on the operator and even on day and time. The opening hours may also vary between operators.

To make it easier to compare different operator's telephone services, FICORA has obliged the operators to publish quarterly reports of the average answering times in their customer and information services. These are statistics and may not describe the situation at a certain moment, but allow a comparison between different operators' quality of service. In addition, many telecommunications operators publish updates more frequently.