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Matthew Vella
The communications authority (MCA) has reiterated a decision not to allow mobile phone companies from contacting customers who port their numbers over to another company, before two months have passed since leaving the network.
Since the implementation of number portability on 1 April 2006, thousands of mobile subscribers have changed their network and retained their telephone number.
But phone companies have also employed exit surveys in a bid to compile information on their departing customers.
The MCA has stated that mobile phone companies cannot employ ‘win back’ strategies with departing customers who are porting their numbers, before two months have elapsed since porting their number over to another mobile phone company.
‘Win back’ is the tactic employed by companies to make contact with customers who have ported to another network or are commencing porting, particularly with the scope of offering discounts, free services, or other incentives that are not available to general subscribers so as not to lose the client.
It also includes contacting the subscriber to gather information on the reasons for porting, discuss the advantages or disadvantages of porting to another network by any form of communication.
The recent decision now prohibits mobile phone companies from contacting a subscriber who has requested number portability.
The company cannot even contact the customer after the porting process, whether to discuss the advantages of porting back or to make preferential offers. “Such an aggravation could risk hindering the porting process in that it could potentially dissuade customers from porting if it became common practice that the donor operator would repeatedly contact the subscriber upon porting,” the MCA said.
In turn, subscribers will not be able cannot port their number again until two months have elapsed from porting their number, while companies will not be able to contact a former customer until two months elapse from the porting process.
Phone companies will however be allowed to conduct exit surveys on departing customers within the two-month period, only if these are in written format primarily because oral surveys over the telephone are difficult to monitor.
According to data protection laws, the customers have to be randomly selected from a list of terminated subscribers. The surveys will not have to be approved by the authority, unless it requests copies of an exit survey, whilst reserving the right to demand such questions to be amended.
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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