The High Court has ordered Virgin Media to change its training materials to ensure it complies with EU rules on financial rewards for its agents for successfully persuading customers not to switch to other TV, internet and phone providers.
On Wednesday, Judge Denis McDonald handed down a formal ruling in the case, finding that Virgin, one of the country's leading service providers, had breached obligations under the EU's Universal Service Regulation in the way its telephone agents dealt with customers who wanted to switch operators.
However, the judge dismissed a separate claim by communications regulator Comreg that Virgin had also breached rules by requiring customers to give 30 days' notice before terminating their contract. The court noted that if Comreg had succeeded on that issue, it could have left Virgin with a potential multi-million pound liability for damages to customers.
The judge also rejected Comreg's arguments that a “two-stage approach” should be applied to customers calling Virgin to cancel their subscription. This would mean the customer would first be given a choice between agreeing to listen to an agent's “conservation” efforts or proceeding straight to cancelling without listening to them.
In his ruling last month, the judge said that despite Virgin's claim that financial incentives for agents were intended to solve customer problems, it was clear that the main event triggering the payment of the incentive was customer retention.
He noted: “Not only are agents instructed in their manuals to use this approach, but they are also incentivised with financial commissions that are only paid if the agent manages to retain a client,” he added.
Following statements on Wednesday by Chief Justice Eileen Barrington (Comreg) and Chief Justice Niall Buckley (Virgin Media) regarding formal decisions, the judge said he would make an order terminating the contract in line with the wording proposed by Comreg, subject to any necessary amendments.
He said this would require Virgin to change its termination terms and procedures to ensure they did not create barriers to switching providers. This would be achieved by amending its training manuals and supporting documents to include, where appropriate, information on financial incentives available to agents, he said.
It also stipulated that if a customer wishes to cancel a subscription, this must be done immediately once the customer has clearly expressed their intention. This will also apply in cases where it is clear that the customer is “not interested in the 'saving' activity,” it added.
However, he said, this does not prevent the agent from asking the customer questions about the reasons for the cancellation, and if the customer has any specific issues with the service, the agent can try to resolve them, unless he insists after it becomes clear that the customer wants to cancel the order.
He noted that the regulation does not prevent an agent from being financially rewarded for resolving a problem if that is the reason for the customer's call. This leaves open the possibility for Virgin to provide such incentives to agents in such circumstances, he added.
The judge said that agent retraining should be completed within eight weeks and that all new agents should undergo similar training. He was not convinced that the new procedures needed to be assessed after six months.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
