Confident, but confounded: Consumer comprehension of telecommunications agreements

educational resource

posted on 2023-03-01, 04:07 authored by Paul HarrisonPaul Harrison, Laura Hill, Charles Gray

Arising out of this research, we recommend the following: Recommendation 1: As part of its current research on the operation of the TCP Code since the Reconnecting the Customer Inquiry , the ACMA should include an evaluation of the CIS to determine the extent to which they assist consumers to understand the key features of their agreement. Recommendation 2: Telecommunications retailers should ensure that plans and market offers are kept as simple as possible with clear elementary features that their customers can easily understand. Recommendation 3: In order to promote better understanding of telecommunications contracts, more work is required by the industry to understand consumer needs during the sale transaction and lifecycle of a contract, and to tailor the time delivery of core information for maximum comprehensibility. Recommendation 4: It is recommended that telecommunications retailers adopt a proactive strategy by conducting follow up courtesy contact with new customers after three billing cycles to see if the customer needs further assistance in understanding their obligations. Recommendation 5: Despite the small sample size, this research finds a need for expert independent research to provide an evidence base when introducing or reviewing customer information obligations, to reduce the risk of inaccurate presumptions about consumer behavior informing regulatory obligations.

History

Pagination

1-117

ISBN-13

9781921974441

Language

eng

Research statement

In this research, we sought to investigate consumer comprehension of telecommunications agreements, not by asking consumers whether they understood their agreements, which is the standard practice for achieving informed consent, but by testing whether consumers did understand their agreements, through a knowledge test. We found that while, in general, consumers displayed confidence in their self-assessed ability to understand telecommunications agreements, only a very small proportion were able to demonstrate adequate understanding of the standard operations and potential problems arising from telecommunications agreements. Indeed, through our empirical research and knowledge test, we found that there was a negative relationship between self-assessed understanding and correct answer, that there was a positive relationship between those who rated the information as relevant to their needs and correct answers, that people with vocational qualifications did worse than all other educational levels, and that people whose first language is not English did worse than others. We also found that different key stakeholders underestimated and overestimated the capacity of consumers to solve every day telecommunications problems. We found that, on average, regulators had the most realistic expectations of consumers’ understanding of their agreements, while consumer advocates underestimated, and telecommunications representatives overestimated consumer capacity to understand their agreements.

Publication classification

A6 Research report/technical paper

Publisher

Australian Communications Consumer Action Network

Place of publication

Sydney, N.S.W.

Source

Confident, but Confounded

Usage metrics

Keywords

consumer contracts regulation telecommunications 3506 Marketing