New Zealand consumer group Telecommunications Dispute Resolution (TDR) reported overall customer complaints about mobile services in Q2 were flat year-on-year, though Vodafone New Zealand registered a significant rise.

In its latest report, TDR stated the overall average ratio of complaints or enquires per 10,000 connections remained at 0.35 in Q2. However, Vodafone’s rate increased from 0.42 in Q2 2019 to 0.58 while rivals Spark and 2degrees registered declines.

Overall connections fell from 6.34 million to 5.94 million.

In the first half of 2020, 90.5 per cent of cases referred to TDR were resolved directly by operators, marginally higher than the 89.6 per cent in H1 2019.

In a statement, Geoff Thorn, head of the country’s Telecommunications Forum, said the telecoms sector “worked extremely hard to keep networks running well”, despite huge spikes in demand for broadband and mobile services.

“As an industry, we also recognise how crucial it is for customers to be able to resolve any service issues they may encounter promptly and efficiently, especially in these challenging times.”

“While the first step for consumers should always be to take any issue up with their provider, we encourage them to use the free and independent TDR service if they feel they can’t get things resolved to their satisfaction.”