TekSavvy tells CRTC about incumbents trying to ‘poach’ customers

GATINEAU — TekSavvy Solutions Inc. told the CRTC Wednesday that a sales code of conduct for the telecom industry should cover technician service visits because its customers have complained about bigger companies using those encounters to pitch their own services. TekSavvy is among a number of smaller ISPs who buy wholesale services from larger telecoms, which means that their customers are serviced by the larger companies’ technicians. Company brass told the commission they have received customer complaints of incumbent techs using those visits to to try to "poach" their customers. Janet Lo, TekSavvy's vice-president of privacy and consumer legal affairs, also told the regulator they've received customer reports of incumbent sales people making misleading claims about their services and how they compare to the smaller company's, including about quality or service characteristics. The company's CRTC intervention pointed to a number of customer stories raising concerns about sales pitches from Rogers Communications Inc., BCE Inc., and in one case Shaw Communications Inc. Lo pointed to one recent case from last week where a customer notified them a competitor's salesperson tried to flip them over during a province-wide outage on a major cable network that mainly affected third-party internet providers. "A customer told us that a salesperson from the same cable carrier knocked on his door during that outage," Lo said Wednesday. "The salesperson claimed that the customer's service would have been restored right away if they switched providers." Lo said a code of conduct “could help to address some of these scenarios,” which affect their ability to "compete for consumers' trust and business." In its written reply to the proceeding, Rogers disputed TekSavvy's complaints, calling them "unsubstantiated" and "baseless" claims. It said TekSavvy didn't provide "any actual evidence of these transgressions." "For the record, the allegations are simply untrue," it said. "None of our technicians are permitted to make any sales offers or make statements about competitors when they are installing or repairing facilities." Rogers' CRTC submission said TekSavvy raised similar "baseless claims" to the CRTC last year in its review of the competitor quality of service regime, and argues it "demonstrated that the claims made by TekSavvy were untrue." But TekSavvy's written reply complained it "continues to hear anecdotal reports" about incumbent technicians "inappropriately selling incumbent retail services," and so current codes "do not appear to sufficiently safeguard against misleading and aggressive sales practices targeting competitors." When asked for comment, a Bell representative said the company will save its comments for its Friday hearing appearance. Shaw’s CRTC reply said TekSavvy's allegations about techs "should be disregarded" because they fall outside the scope of the hearing, which is about consumer retail sales practices. Teksavvy wasn't the only company to complain about an incumbent representative being misleading about other companies. Quebecor Inc.'s intervention on behalf of Videotron references another case, explained in an intervention by one of its customers, Jean-Philippe Roy Léonard, who complained about Bell door-to-door representatives misinforming him about services. Videotron's submission said in French that kind of behaviour by its main competitor appears to be “unacceptable” behaviour because it misleads customers, and encouraged the CRTC to look into whether that's a widespread problem in the marketplace. TekSavvy was one of a number of smaller providers who appeared at the CRTC's sales practices hearing Wednesday, the third day of week-long hearings on sales practices. TBayTel Inc., Xplornet Communications Inc., BCE Inc.’s Northwestel and Bragg Communications Inc.'s Eastlink also appeared. Some small providers re-iterated concerns the entire industry might now get painted with one brush after numerous allegations of unsavory sales practices by big telecoms, and worried the hearings could lead to additional regulations that increase their costs. TBayTel's president and CEO Dan Topatigh said any added administrative burden would have a "significant negative impact on the smallest companies," which the hearing record has shown are "not the companies that have caused the public's frustration." Companies testifying Wednesday said aggressive and misleading sales practices don’t typically happen at their respective businesses. Xplornet, for example, said that it had not received any complaints about its sales practices from July 2016 to July 2018, and noted few interventions mentioned them. Representatives from BCE Inc.'s Northwestel said looking at overall complaint volume, there doesn't appear to be a big problem with industry sales practices. Canada's large telecom companies have maintained that their sales practices are fair. — With reporting by Kyle Duggan at kduggan@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

TekSavvy tells CRTC about incumbents trying to ‘poach’ customers

News | October 24, 2018

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TekSavvy tells CRTC about incumbents trying to ‘poach’ customers

News | October 24, 2018

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