The FCC has turned its sharp eye to the poor customer service it often receives from telecommunications providers. The agency said Wednesday that it is launching a formal proceeding to review customer support from cable, broadband, satellite TV and home voice service providers.
The review will cover friction points customers face when contacting telecommunications industry providers. These include difficult to cancel subscriptions, getting stuck in “doom loops” when trying to contact someone in person, automatic renewals and poor accessibility options for people with disabilities.
“We can and should expect consistent, transparent and helpful customer service from communications companies that provide so many vital services in our daily lives,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wrote in a press release announcing the investigation. “No one should be stuck in a doom loop trying to cancel a subscription or call someone for help solving their service problems.”
The FCC wants to simplify customer cancellation options, requiring providers to offer more options and transparent disclosures at the point of sale and on bills. In addition, it hopes to mandate explicit customer consent before services are automatically renewed and help customers get easier access to live representatives without bouncing through endless phone trees. It also aims to improve access to customer service resources for people with disabilities.
Other fine points on the agenda include extending existing regulations for cable operator installation, outage, and service call rules to include satellite TV, voice, and broadband services.
Finally, it wants “existing cable operator customer service requirements to reflect market and technology changes.” The commission adopted the notice of inquiry with a 3-2 vote “in which the majority highlighted the importance of customer support.”
For starters, the FCC will create a public record of the current state of these customer service points and what specific rules it can adopt to make things easier for families and businesses.
This inquiry is part of a larger effort to crack down on everyday annoyances that waste time and money. Earlier this month, the FCC launched an investigation into the broadband industry’s pointless, profit-grabbing data caps.
This summer, Verizon paid a $1 million fine to settle an investigation into a 2022 outage that left hundreds of emergency calls unreachable. Meanwhile, the FTC recently reaffirmed its “click-to-cancel” rule, making it easier to end a subscription.