The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, has said it will mandate telecommunication firms to attend to their customers within 30 minutes of arriving at any customer care centre in the country.
This was made known in a statement titled, ‘Draft Quality of Service Business Rules,’ on the commission’s website.
The statement said the business rules stipulate the minimum quality and standards of service, associated measurements, and key performance indicators for measuring the quality of service.
The customer care section in the document stated that a subscriber’s waiting time at customer care centres before being physically attended to by relevant staff must not exceed 30 minutes. Today, customers are kept for hours before being attended to.
The NCC said, “Waiting time to be physically attended to by relevant staff at customer care centres ≤ 30 minutes. The Licensee shall provide means of measuring the waiting time, starting from the time of arrival at the premises.”
Also, the NCC said it will ensure subscribers speak to a customer care representative within five minutes of calling a telco’s helpline.
It stated, “Where a customer decides to speak to a live agent, the maximum duration allowable on the queue/IVR should be 5 minutes before the answer.
“In exceptional cases where a live agent may be unavailable within five minutes to answer the call, a customer should be given an option to hang up to be called back within a maximum time of 30 minutes.”
The NCC further stated that subscribers may lose their numbers within a year of not using it. A subscriber line may also be deactivated if it has not been used, within six months, this is for a Revenue Generating Event, RGE. However, If the situation persists for another six months the subscriber may lose their number, except for a network-related fault inhibiting an RGE.
It added, “Monies left in account on deactivation can be claimed by subscribers once proof of ownership can be established at any given time within 1 year (less any fee paid by the operator for the number within the 1-year of non-RGE).”
It further noted that a subscriber with proof of good reason for absence is at liberty to request line parking.
