The Association of Li
censed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has advised subscribers to use self-help lines provided by the service providers to resolve their telecoms issues.
The ALTON Chairman, Mr Gbenga Adebayo, told newsmen in Lagos on Wednesday, that operators were doing the best they could to ensure that subscribers’ problems were solved.
Adebayo said service providers had introduced several self-help measures in order to address customers’ worries.
“The self-help lines, such as online resolution, guidelines through a few processes on the telephone and on the computer are some of the solutions that are provided in order to reduce dependence on the call centres,” he said.
According to him, it is not unusual to have traffic in the customer care help lines at some point.
The ALTON chairman added that the congestion experienced by telecoms consumers while trying to reach operators call centres were obtainable in other countries.
“When I was abroad and made a call to my service provider, I did it twice on two different days.
“The first day, I was held on the queue for 52 minutes and the second day, I was held on the queue for 1:10 minutes before I could speak with a customer care personnel, and that was in the United Kingdom, a developed economy.
“But they also gave me other options, such as going online to resolve my problem or dialling a few codes on my telephone to resolve the issue.
“‘So, what we have today in the industry is not unusual, but it can be better, there is always room for improvement and the players are doing the best they can in that regard,’’ he said.
In a separate interview,  the President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) Mr Lanre Ajayi, underscored the need for the expansion of their customer care centre capacity.
Ajayi said that from all indications, there were more customers than what the customer care representatives could cope with.
“I think what the operators have to do is to expand the capacity, putting more people at the customer service centres,’’ he said.
On his part, the President of the National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS), Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, also urged telecoms operators to be more effective in their customer care services.
Ogunbanjo told reporters that telecoms consumers were always kept waiting for longer time whenever they called operator’s customer care centres to resolve telecoms issues.
According to him, going to the customer care centres physically was not convenient as subscribers are also kept waiting, while the representatives direct the customer’s complaints to the appropriate quarters.
“They don’t have a means of attending to complaints, they just keep you waiting. In most cases, only few complaints are resolved to the satisfaction of the subscribers.
“There should be more customer care centres built,’’ he said.