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Matthew Vella
A decision by the Malta Communications Authority (MCA) for mobile operators not to contact departing customers who port their numbers over to another company, is being appealed by Vodafone Malta.
The decision prohibits mobile phone companies from contacting departing customers before two months have passed since leaving the network.
Vodafone is claiming the definition of ‘win back’ by the MCA has been widened excessively to include exit surveys.
Win back involves making contact with porting customers with the scope of offering discounts, free services, or other incentives that are not available to general subscribers so as not to lose the client. It also includes contacting the subscriber to gather information on the reasons for porting, or discuss the advantages or disadvantages of porting to another network by any form of communication.
Since the implementation of number portability on 1 April 2006, thousands of mobile subscribers have changed their network and retained their telephone number.
But phone companies have also employed exit surveys in a bid to compile information on their departing customers.
The MCA has stated that mobile phone companies cannot employ ‘win back’ strategies with departing customers before two months have elapsed since porting their number over to another mobile phone company.
“Exit surveys and Win back are two distinct activities,” a spokesperson for Vodafone told Business Today. “Whilst we acknowledge that Win back should not be practiced within the timeframe stipulated by the MCA, we contend that exit surveys are totally distinct in nature and simply allow operators to gauge the reasons why customers decide to switch operators.”
Vodafone Malta said exit surveys are carried out by operators across the world as a means of gathering information and to continually enhance their service quality levels. “This is normal business practice in many service industries globally.”
The MCA’s decision allows phone companies to conduct exit surveys on departing customers within the two-month period, only if these are in written format primarily because oral surveys over the telephone are difficult to monitor. In accordance with data protection laws, the customers have to be randomly selected from a list of terminated subscribers. The surveys will not have to be approved by the authority, unless it requests copies of an exit survey, whilst reserving the right to demand such questions to be amended.
But Vodafone Malta said the MCA decision is “incongruent”.
“On the one hand it classifies exit surveys as win back and hence not allowable, whilst on the other hand it states that exit surveys shall only be allowed by email and post. Vodafone contends that these two means for conducting surveys are the least effective ones.”
Vodafone also said the basis of the MCA’s decision was detrimental to competition and contrary to mainstream industry norms. “Since Vodafone places customer delight at the forefront of all its activities, we view this decision as intrusive and heavy handed since it hinders us from striving to continually serve our customers better with high quality products and services.”
The MCA decision prohibits mobile phone companies from also contacting the customer after the porting process, whether to discuss the advantages of porting back or to make preferential offers. “Such an aggravation could risk hindering the porting process in that it could potentially dissuade customers from porting if it became common practice that the donor operator would repeatedly contact the subscriber upon porting,” the MCA decision states.
In turn, subscribers will not be able cannot port their number again until two months have elapsed from porting their number, while companies will not be able to contact a former customer until two months elapse from the porting process.
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