![\"girl_screaming_at_phone\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/assets\/girl_screaming_at_phone.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In 2012, Afutt (the French association for telcoms\u00a0users) registered a record number of official complaints<\/a> from subscribers about their mobile service. Although mobile contracts are getting cheaper and cheaper thanks to newbie Free Mobile as well as the incumbents who’ve been playing catch-up, consumers don’t look to any happier with their mobile services. In fact, last year there was a 21% jump in consumer complaints linked to mobile services.<\/span><\/p>\n As the largest mobile operator in France, Orange, looks to be the one suffering most on this front as they currently account for 24% of all complaints with SFR just behind at 21%. In the next tier, standing at approx 18%, 18%, and 16% respectively are Bouygues, MVNO (mobile virtual network operators – eg Virgin, Debitel, etc), and Free. \u00a0As for what people are complaining about, billing (19%), quality and service reliability (11%), and contract cancellation problems (by the user – 11%) round out the top three types of complaints.<\/p>\n As mobile providers continue to invest in adding services that they believe consumers most want, maybe they should first go back to basics a bit and work on improving the simple stuff first. Perhaps\u00a0Free’s approach which attempts to tackle the price issue first is the right one. Case in point, their announcement last Friday<\/a> that they’d be added the ability to call while abroad to their 2\u20ac mobile plan. The international calling is a nice add, but even more important is that the pricing is clear and it won’t cost users a fortune.<\/p>\n![\"plaintes_afutt\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/assets\/plaintes_afutt.jpg\")
Since Afutt started tracking all complaints related to telecom in 2007, they’ve witnessed an acceleration in the amount of complaints linked to mobile services, which now stand at 64% of all telco complaints vs 28% for internet and 8% for fixed lines. They believe that the advent of low-cost services may, in fact, be working against telcos because it’s in fact making consumers more demanding overall. I personally see it as a good thing that in a market that was so highly concentrated and monopolized for so long, the power finally seems to be shifting to consumers. However, I can see how the telcos, particularly the old-guard, wouldn’t exactly welcome this mini-revolution.<\/p>\n![\"afutt_plaintes-mobiles\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/assets\/afutt_plaintes-mobiles.jpg\")
<\/p>\n