TRA Sustains High Consumer Support Standards

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority’s (TRA) has had another successful quarter with their consumer support operations with performance standards making consistent progress for the first half of the year in the interest of providing the public with the best possible care, responding to inquiries with quick and accurate information.

TRA monitors their service standards with an eye towards sustained improvement. TRA received 364 tickets in the first two quarters of 2016, whereas in 2015 the tickets opened were 208. Likewise, complaints reached 335 with 282 closed (85% in 15 days on average) where it was 204 last year with 176 closed (86% in 16 days on average). 25% (compared to 32% 2015 H1) of complaints related to billing, 24% (unchanged from 2015) to quality of service, 53% (compared to 56% 2015 H1) to mobile services and 36% (compared to 39% 2015 H1) to broadband services.

The TRA’s hotline call center also made significant progress in performance for the mid-year when compared to the same period in 2015. Total received calls in H1 reached 2468 of which call agents answered 2414 compared to 1646 calls in the same period of 2015 of which 1597 were answered. Average time to answer calls were 4 seconds in H1 of 2015, where the time had increased to 6.3 seconds on average in H1 of 2016. The rise in average time is due to the increased volume of callers, however when looking at the total calls answered within 15 seconds, 1529 (95%) total calls were answered in 2015 while 2321 (93%) were answered in 2016. Despite the high volume of calls, performance remains above 90%

“What we can tell from the statistics is that the number of complaints brought to us are starting to rise due to the success of our awareness campaigns.” Said TRA Acting Director of Consumer Affairs and Media, Mrs. Taiba Al Bin Ali. “Progress in our performance level has been minor compared to the same period in 2015, however, this is offset by the increased volume of incoming consumer calls. Relatively, we are doing very well, and it will be interesting to see how things fare as people become more aware of our role.”