Those are the findings of a big “Mystery Shopper” survey, which has seen people going undercover to visit Airtel, JT, Newtel and Sure in store and contacting them again on the phone to rate their customer service.
The 10 mystery shoppers say the customer service at JT, Sure and Airtel’s shops was good, better than on the phone when they gave them all a satisfactory rating.
The customer service in store at Newtel wasn’t quite so good and the operator got a satisfactory rating for both it and for their staff’s performance on the phone.
The Channel Islands Competition and Regulatory Authorities (CICRA) commissioned Island Global Research to find out how our operators were performing.
CICRA director Louise Read said: “CICRA is responsible for the regulating the telecommunications industry in the Channel Islands and ensuring that customers receive best value, choice and access to high quality services.
“We commissioned the mystery shopper investigation to identify where the operators are performing well and where further work may be required.
“We have provided operators with the full details of the report and encourage them to use the results to help identify where further improvement could be made.
“The results of this study should be of benefit to customers when considering their choice of telecoms provider.”
The phone companies have welcomed the feedback.
JT’s Head of Marketing, Brand and Distribution, Tamara O’Brien said: “We were pleased to read that CICRA’s mystery shoppers have described JT’s shops in Jersey and Guernsey as bright, welcoming and well laid out, with staff who are friendly, helpful and knowledgeable on products and tariffs, and waiting times which were relatively short; and the positive comments on the quality of JT’s telephone service were also testament to the hard work that has been done to improve this area of our business over the last year or so. I’d like to thank the team at JT for all they have done to get us to this point.”
John Harvey, Head of Retail at Sure, said: “All feedback is useful and informs Sure’s ongoing development.
“The retail and customer service elements of the telecoms sector are extremely competitive and are key to customers deciding which network they choose. As the report found, this means that all operators put an enormous amount of effort into ensuring that their shops and customer phone lines offer a good service.”
Peter Zunino, head of marketing at Airtel-Vodafone, said: “From historical research we have conducted, consumers have often felt daunted when choosing a mobile provider particularly in terms of understanding technical terminology and what they are getting for their money. Therefore it’s very pleasing to see that we have achieved consistent “good” ratings across the board, with highest ratings in key areas of clarity of pricing, usefulness of information and additional technical support.”
CICRA are planning to do another mystery shopping investigation later in the year.