Mobile phone providers need to do more to inform customers with special needs about services that are available for them, says a new report by the communications regulator Ofcom.
Communications providers are required by law to provide a range of services for customers with special needs and they must also take reasonable steps to ensure that these services are widely publicised. However, a mystery shopping survey, conducted by Ofcom, revealed that only 37 per cent of callers were provided with information about at least one service available for customers with special needs without further prompting. While this figure rose to 75 per cent after prompting, this is a significant drop since Ofcom’s 2006 research, when 91 per cent of calls resulted in information being provided about at least one service after prompting.
The survey, of providers BT, Orange, O2, TalkTalk, T-Mobile, Virgin Media, Vodafone and 3, was conducted by mystery shoppers calling on behalf of “relatives” who were blind or visually impaired, deaf or hard of hearing, had a cognitive impairment or were in hospital long term.
Nineteen percent of calls on behalf of blind people resulted in the mystery shopper being told, at least initially, that there were no special services for disabled customers. The most commonly mentioned service for deaf customers was text relay, but this was only mentioned in 49 per cent of calls even after prompting.
