Newly published guidelines for the operation of telecommunications companies (telcos) in Nigeria to improve customers’ experience poses to deactivate inactive SIM cards.
The Nigeria Communications Commission said the publication was in accordance with section 57 of the NCC act to allow stakeholders to make contributions to the policy.
The new NCC guidelines titled: ‘Draft Quality of Service Business Rules’, stipulate the minimum quality and standards of service, associated measurements and key performance indicators for measuring the quality of service.
The NCC document directed telcos to attend to customers within 30 minutes upon arrival at any of their service centres across the country.
The commission also said telcos must ensure that customers can speak to their care representative within five minutes when they call a telco’s helpline.
“Lines should not be more than three times; maximum number of rings before a call is answered by either an IVR machine or a live agent should not be more than five; and where a customer decides to speak to a live agent, the maximum duration allowable on the queue/IVR should be 5 minutes before answer,” NCC said.
“In exceptional cases where a live agent may be unavailable within five minutes to answer the call, a customer should be given an option to hang up to be called back within a maximum time of 30 minutes.
The commission said “subscribers may lose their numbers within a year if they do not use it”.
“A subscriber line may be deactivated if it has not been used, within six months, for a Revenue Generating Event (RGE), and If the situation persists for another six months the subscriber may lose their number, except for a network-related fault inhibiting an RGE.”
“Deduction of line rental charge is regarded by RGE.
To recover their lines, the commission said subscribers must provide “proof of good reason for absence is at liberty to request for line parking.”
On credit alert while on call, telcos are expected to send “a single short-beep to the call initiator 2 minutes, and at 30 seconds to termination of the ongoing call”.
It added that “low credit announcement to be played while the call is being originated in a situation where the call cannot last up to 30 secs.”
Meanwhile, NCC did not state exactly when this guidelines would take effect proper.
