The Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) resolved around 94% of telecom consumers’ complaints received in 2019, and engaged with telecom service providers to discuss solutions for all the complaints.
CRA received 1,062 complaints and 1,400 inquiries from consumers about telecom services in Qatar. These complaints were evaluated by CRA based on a set of criteria to determine their validity to CRA’s complaint process – 698 were valid complaints and 364 were invalid, and CRA resolved around 94% of the total complaints. CRA is working with the licensed service providers to finalise the related investigation of the remaining ones and expects to resolve them during the coming weeks.
The statistics indicate that 71% of all complaints were related to mobile services; billing complaints of postpaid services accounted the highest percentage of mobile services complaints. As for fixed-line services, the statistics indicate that it was 29% of the total complaints and out of these complaints the service disconnections and billing were the most received.
“Resolving these complaints is a vital part of our role in protecting telecom consumers in Qatar, and in the spirit of transparency, we will continue to share these figures with the public. CRA is constantly looking for ways to improve the experience of telecom consumers and service providers in Qatar.
“Hence, we launched Telecom Complaints Management System in the last quarter of 2019, which aims at automating all the processes related to resolving telecom consumers’ complaints, thus ease managing the complaints,” said Amel Salem al-Hanawi, manager, consumer affairs at CRA.
The Telecom Complaints Management System brings all stakeholders together: the CRA, Government Contact Centre that manages CRA’s hotline (103), and licensed service
providers.
Stakeholders manage all the related activities through the system and they are able to track complaints all the way from submission to resolution. The system enables stakeholders to follow up and update consumers about the status of their complaints or inquiries in real-time, or even request them to send documents that support their complaints.
Under CRA’s telecom complaint resolution process, consumers with a complaint are free to approach the CRA if their complaint lodged directly to their service provider about a mobile service disconnection remains open or unresolved for 48 hours, or 72 hours in case of fixed-line disconnection.
Also, if the complaint is not related to a service disconnection and remains unresolved for 30 calendar days or if the complaint is closed at any time and they were dissatisfied with the offered resolution.
Consumers can lodge a complaint to CRA through different channels: the CRA’s 24/7 hotline number (103), [email protected], on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram accounts @CRAqatar, the CRA’s mobile App Arsel, filling CRA’s complaint form on the website www.cra.gov.qa, or by visiting the CRA’s headquarters at Al Nasr Tower (B).
Amel Salem al-Hanawi, manager, consumer affairs at CRA.
