Ofcom has announced that it will be changing the way broadband and home phone customers switch providers. Currently the system is one which is 'losing provider lad', where the firm you want to ditch has to be helpful, perhaps providing some kind of code to help you migrate away from its services. Ofcom notes that your existing outgoing provider might feel it has "an incentive to delay or disrupt the transfer". Under the new proposed rules Ofcom has outlined a single switching 'gaining provider led' process that will be handled by the new telecoms firm, eager for your custom.
Two bullet points outline Ofcom's new initiative:
- Customer’s new provider to manage the transfer process on their behalf
- Improved measures to prevent against loss of service when switching
This change has been prompted by the use of "complex switching processes" which often put consumers off switching to better deals. On its news release page the telecoms watchdog explained "Ofcom research shows that, in cases where the customer has to contact their existing company to request a change, the resulting process can be significantly more difficult for consumers to follow. Such a process can give too much control to the existing provider, which has an incentive to delay or disrupt the transfer." The watchdog supposed that "This can also result in unwanted pressure on customers not to change provider." So a change must be made to benefit customers and Ofcom has decided that customers will "only need follow a single switching process in future, in which the new provider leads the transfer process on behalf of the consumer."
Additionally, as listed in the second bullet point above, Ofcom has also set out measures so that there will be a minimal loss of service for switching customers. The single process outline draft is as follows:
Under the single switching process, providers would have to:
- keep a record of every customer’s consent for any switch to protect them from being deliberately transferred to a different provider without consent – a practice known as ‘slamming’;
- improve their use of certain processes to prevent against consumers losing service when changing provider, particularly when switching landline and broadband services together;
- mitigate against consumers having their lines switched accidentally during house-moves, by only placing an order to take over communications services at the new property once they have an exact match for that address. Consumers moving out of the address where services are due to be taken over must also be notified by their own provider; and
- give consumers better information on the implications of changing provider, such as early termination charges, so they can make informed decisions on whether to switch.
Ofcom is still consulting upon the above details, a process which finishes in October. The details are then expected to be finalised in early 2014 and implemented before 2015. Ofcom noted that it will also be reviewing the switching processes of pay TV and mobile phone companies.
