KEY POINTS:
Consumers should not have to experience the frustration of dealing with poorly trained call-centre operators, irrespective of the geographical location of the centre, the Advertising Standards Authority Complaints Board says.
It made the comment while upholding a complaint from a man who was wrongly charged for a call made using a phonecard, and who was not immediately refunded because of problems with a call centre in India. The complainant used a Deshcall card which advertised that "for 45 cents you can speak for two hours" to the UK and other countries. He was charged $1.02 for a call of less than an hour to Britain.
When he phoned customer service he was told by the operator that she couldn't do anything and could not refund him.
The advertiser ITSM said the call taker was a temporary staff member and should have immediately refunded the complainant.
"As you may appreciate we are working with a call centre in India that fields our calls and this has created some problems."
The complaints board acknowledged the difficulties the advertiser was having, but upheld the complaint.
It acknowledged an increase in the use of call centres by local organisations.
"However, regardless of the geographical location of the call centre, it was the Complaints Board's view that the consumer should not have to experience the frustration of dealing with an operator who had not been properly or appropriately trained to deal with or provide information about the product being promoted."
- NZPA
