Compliance with the Public Awareness Plan

Trend #1.  Majority of PSP complaints page do not contain information about the CCTS, and are not clearly labelled or easy to find

In 2022, the CCTS found that more than half of PSPs’ complaint pages did not contain information about the CCTS and were not clearly labelled or were not easy to find. Issues identified include:

• the PSP’s complaint page failing to include any information about the CCTS;
• hyperlinks to the complaints page were not clearly labelled because the words used were misleading or confusing, (e.g. such as “How to complain to us”, which implies the page is for complaining to the provider only and not to an independent agency);
• the CCTS information was buried in Terms of Service or the Privacy Policy;
• PSP’s business website failing to include any information about the CCTS, even though small business customers are eligible to file complaints with the CCTS.

The CCTS’ objective is to ensure customers can easily find information about the CCTS when they need it most – when they have a complaint about their services. Customers should not have to scour their PSP’s website to find information about the PSP’s complaint process and their right of recourse to the CCTS.

Each year, we continue to find it difficult to navigate to the PSP’s complaint page and to find information about the CCTS. It is a recurring issue throughout the industry and among individual PSPs. Each year between 2019-2022, approximately half of audited PSPs were non-compliant with this requirement.

After identifying non-compliance, we work with PSPs every year to ensure their complaint page is clearly labelled, easy to find and contains the CCTS information. Despite PSPs addressing their non-compliance each year, new instances of non-compliance occur each year. Between 2019 and 2022, there were 16 PSPs that were non-compliant with this requirement in multiple years. Three PSPs were non-compliant with the requirement for 3 out of 4 years. To address this, we issued a memo in 2022 providing further clarification for PSPs to ensure they understand what the CCTS considers to be “clearly labelled and easy to find”. This guidance helps PSPs understand how we assess compliance for this requirement so that they can avoid non-compliance in the future.

Trend #2: Improvement on positioning and context of CCTS information

Last year, we noticed a new issue with the way the CCTS notice was contextualized on some PSP websites and invoices. Specifically, the CCTS observed that some PSPs were:

• adding language on the website or positioning the CCTS message to indicate that a customer must exhaust a specific number of steps in the PSP’s internal complaint-handling process before they were permitted to complain to the CCTS; or
• listing on their websites or invoices certain subjects or issues as being out of scope for the CCTS.

The CCTS was concerned that the way PSPs were positioning and including information on their websites could leave customers with the inaccurate impression that the CCTS was not available to them, frustrating the objective of the Public Awareness Plan.

In response to this issue, the CCTS provided guidance to all PSPs in the 2021 Compliance Monitoring Report and in a memo explaining the issue and providing examples of compliant and non-compliant activity. We also engaged with the PSPs we identified as having the problem, to explain and address the issue.

This year, we were pleased to see that only two PSPs were non-compliant with this guidance initially, and those PSPs have now come into compliance after this issue was brought to their attention.

Trend #3.  Majority of PSP websites with search function did not return the PSP complaint page

In 2022, 55% of PSP websites with a search function did not return results with a link to the complaints page with the CCTS information when searching for all keywords related to complaints and CCTS.  This is an improvement compared to 2021, when over 70% of PSPs with a search function were non-compliant. However, in each of the four years that the CCTS has assessed compliance with the search function, more than half of PSPs’ search functions did not return a link to the complaint page with the CCTS information.

While reviewing the results from PSPs which are audited each year between 2019 to 2022, we found repeated non-compliance as 14 of the 19 PSPs audited year over year were non-compliant with the search function at least twice.  Two of these PSPs were non-compliant with this requirement all four years.

Although each year these PSPs fixed the issue when the CCTS brought it to their attention after the annual audits, the errors recurred. PSPs explained to us that this is due to  website changes  implemented throughout the year.

Since our first annual compliance monitoring report, we’ve consistently identified the concern that many PSPs are non-compliant with the search function requirement. We should not have to remind PSPs each year to ensure their search function consistently returns the right results throughout the year. When PSPs update their website, they should take steps to verify that the required keywords continue to return the required CCTS information.

The rate of non-compliance is unacceptable and avoidable by PSPs through internal control processes for website updates. The search function is often the first tool that customers will use on a PSP website to find information on how to complain or the CCTS. Given the limited improvement and significant recurrence, the CCTS is considering naming PSPs that have recurring issues with the search function. We urge PSPs to implement internal processes and regular checks to ensure that website updates do not impact the search function.

Trend #4.  Business websites do not contain information about the CCTS

PSPs are required to ensure that information about the CCTS is readily available to customers when they need it most. Customers, including small businesses, should be aware of their right to access the CCTS’ complaint resolution service. Therefore, PSPs with business websites are required to have information about the CCTS on their business websites.  The CCTS found that 8 out of 26 PSPs with business websites were initially non-compliant with this requirement. Seven of those PSPs are now compliant or have provided us with their plan to become compliant. Vonage Canada Corporation, as discussed below, failed to rectify its non-compliance.

Since 2019, we have observed that some PSPs with dedicated business websites did not include information about the CCTS on their business complaint page.  We sent out guidance to all PSPs on this issue in 2022. We will continue to specifically audit PSP small business webpages to ensure information about the CCTS is included.

For full results, see Appendix C. Public Awareness Plan website audit results.

Documentation Review

Documentation review – initial audit results

In 2022, the CCTS audited the invoices, white pages and internal complaint-handling process of the 25 PSPs that generated the most complaints in 2020-21 in order to determine whether they complied with their obligations under the Public Awareness Plan.

Nearly 90% of the 25 PSPs audited were fully compliant with all Public Awareness Plan documentation requirements and these PSPs did not need to make any changes. This is a significant improvement from 2021, where 64% of PSPs were initially compliant.

The non-compliance this year was due to:

• 1 PSP did not provide the required CCTS message on their invoices to customers and 1 PSP failed to provide the required CCTS message via text message to its wireless customers who do not receive an invoice. Following engagement, both PSPs have implemented measures to ensure they provide the required CCTS message to their customers going forward.
• Vonage Canada Corporation failed to provide us with the required documentation by the deadline despite extensive engagement efforts. We extended the deadline twice upon request for Vonage Canada Corporation to provide the required documentation and it did not. We followed up multiple times and it did not respond to our requests. Consequently, the CCTS has deemed Vonage Canada Corporation non-compliant for failure to comply with the request for information and the documentation requirements outlined in the Public Awareness Plan. Vonage Canada Corporation also failed to rectify the non-compliance issues on its website. We will continue to engage Vonage Canada and review whether there are other issues of non-compliance.

See Appendix D for full documentation audit results.