NCC releases new guidelines for telecommunication companies

The Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) has directed telecommunications companies in Nigeria to deactivate phone lines unused for six consecutive months for Revenue Generating Event (RGE).

The commission gave the directive in a customer guideline document titled: “Draft Quality of Service Business Rules,” released to network providers to improve customer experience.

The document was made available to journalists on Friday.

The document read: “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.”

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The NCC also ordered the telecommunications companies to ensure customers in their walk-in centres were attended to within 30 minutes. It also reviewed the wait time for customers on a helpline to five minutes.

“For customer care centres, waiting time to be physically attended to by relevant staff at customer care centres is 30 minutes.

“The licensee shall provide means of measuring the waiting time, starting from the time of arrival at the premises. 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.

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“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.

“However, 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.

“Customer care lines that can be accessible through 21 free access numbers and if 1 number then it should accommodate multiple other network calls at the same time,” it added.