Telstra is committed to achieving customer service excellence. To this end, we're committed to upholding the legislated Telecommunications (Customer Service Guarantee) Standard 2023 ("the CSG Standard"), as amended and issued by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
The CSG Standard specifies certain requirements to which carriage service providers (including Telstra) must adhere to in relation to the provision and repair of Standard Telephone Services and appointments associated with these activities.
The CSG Standard applies to all fixed telephone companies and covers the Standard Telephone Service (STS) and five specified Enhanced Call Handling Features (ECHF).
These features are:
Consistent with the Federal Government's stated policy on CSG application to residential and small business customers, the CSG Standard applies only to customers with no greater than five Standard Telephone Services. A customer does not include a carrier or a carriage service provider.
The CSG Standard applies to:
For connections, Standard Telephone Services are eligible regardless of what is connected at the end of the service (e.g. internet or fax). However, for repairs, only voice telephony faults are covered. This means that non-voice faults such as internet access or fax faults are not covered by the CSG Standard.
The CSG Standard does not apply to data products (e.g. Telstra's Digital Data Services), customer premises equipment, customer cabling, payphones, and sophisticated business-oriented services, such as Telstra's Centel, SiteLines, corporate virtual private networks and similar services. It also does not apply to mobile or satellite services, unless these are used to deliver Universal Service Obligation (USO) telephone services. It also does not apply to activities past the network boundary point (NBP), namely, the first telephone socket, the network termination device (NTD) or the main distribution frame (MDF) where applicable.
Individuals and organisations that have a direct retail contractual arrangement with a telephone service provider other than Telstra should contact that company directly for all matters relating to the CSG Standard.
Additional exclusions are summarised in the section 'When the CSG Standard does not apply'.
Customer service locations
Consistent with the CSG Standard, Telstra has defined the different demographic categories as shown below:
Service location category | Demographic size |
---|---|
Urban | Township/community grouping of 10,000 people or more |
Major Rural | Township/community grouping of more than 2,500 people but less than 10,000 people |
Minor Rural | Township/community grouping of 201 people or more but not more than 2,500 people within a standard zone |
Remote | Township/community grouping of less than 200 people or township/community grouping located outside a standard zone |
For appointments, the CSG Standard allows the following grace periods as shown below:
Service location | Appointment period | Grace period |
---|---|---|
All locations | Less than or equal to 4 hours | 15 minutes |
Urban and Major Rural | Greater than 4 hours and less than or equal to 5 hours | None |
Minor Rural and Remote | Greater than 4 hours and less than or equal to 5 hours1 | 45 minutes |
1. Where there is a need to travel a long distance
When requesting a connection or reporting a fault, customers are required to contact Telstra by 5pm on a working day for the specified connection and fault timeframes to apply from that day. Customer requests received after this time will be taken to have been received the following working day.
A working day is a day that is not a Saturday, a Sunday or a public holiday in the customer service area.
Telstra will apply the "guaranteed maximum connection periods" set out below. The time frames are consistent with the CSG Standard. In some circumstances Telstra has committed to applying shorter timeframes. These are specified in Telstra's Our Customer Terms:
Service location | In-place connection1 | New connection with infrastructure and spare capacity | New connection without infrastructure or spare capacity |
---|---|---|---|
Urban | Within 2 working days after request | Within 5 working days after request | Within 20 working days (equivalent to 1 month) after request |
Major Rural | Within 2 working days after request | Within 10 working days after request | Within 20 working days (equivalent to 1 month) after request |
Minor Rural | Within 2 working days after request | Within 10 working days after request2 | Within 20 working days (equivalent to 1 month) after request |
Remote | Within 2 working days after request | Within 15 working days after request | Within 20 working days (equivalent to 1 month) after request |
1. An in-place connection is a connection of a Standard Telephone Service at a site where a previous working service has been cancelled by the previous account holder and is available for automatic reconnection or reactivation without the need for Telstra to do any other connection work at the customer premises, the local telephone exchange, or any places in-between.
2. The legislated connection timeframe for a new connection with infrastructure and spare capacity in a Minor Rural location is 15 working days. Telstra has committed to a shortened timeframe of 10 working days in these circumstances.
The guaranteed maximum repair periods specified by the CSG Standard are:
Service location | Time for repair1 |
---|---|
Urban | End of 1 full working day after report1 |
Major Rural | End of 2 full working days after report |
Minor Rural | End of 2 full working days after report |
Remote | End of 3 full working days after report |
1. The time for repair relating to 'end of 1 full working day after report' applies to all service locations where the fault occurs due to an administrative error by the telephone company, or if the fault can be rectified without the telephone company attending customer premises or undertaking internal or external plant work.
For connection, repair and appointment liability incurred on or after 31 October 2006, we're liable to make a CSG payment to you in accordance with the CSG Standard in the following circumstances:
The CSG Standard does not apply in certain circumstances, including the following:
Telstra has also implemented a customer service commitment for mobile phone services.
Telstra is committed to achieving customer service excellence. The aim of Telstra Mobile is to satisfy all your mobile service requests while you’re on the phone to us. If you call us on 125 111^, we’ll offer advice on the best mobile plan to suit your needs and, with your agreement, change your arrangements. We can also connect MessageBank®, Memo and Easycall® services and process most account changes on the spot. In addition, we offer the following Telstra Mobile Service Commitment.
For approved customers, we’ll activate your new Telstra mobile service while you’re at the point of sale or, if you’ve requested that your existing mobile number be ported to Telstra for your new Telstra Mobile service, once the port is successfully completed. Complete activation of your service through the exchange usually occurs within one hour of application or port completion (whichever is applicable). If you’re not satisfied that we’ve adequately met these connection timeframes, you may make a claim*. If Telstra determines that the connection timeframes have not been met, a credit of $40 (incl. GST) will be applied to the account subject to the claim.
If you call us with a billing enquiry on your mobile service, we’ll try to resolve it on the spot and if we’re not able to do so, we’ll respond to you within two working days. If we don’t respond within two working days, you may make a claim*. We’ll credit your account with $40 (incl. GST).
If you contact us to report a difficulty with your mobile service we’ll endeavour to give you advice on the spot as to the source of the problem. If further network investigation is required and you request feedback on its status, we’ll respond to you within two working days. If we don’t respond within two working days, and you make a claim*, we’ll credit your account with $40 (incl. GST).
To make a Telstra Mobile Service Commitment claim call us on 125 111^ (or on FREECALL™# 1800 808 981 if you’re a TTY user).
*Important: you must make the claim within one month of the incident for which the claim is being made.
^ Call charges apply
# A free call from most fixed phones
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To make a service guarantee enquiry in relation to the connection of your Standard Telephone Service, including a missed appointment, call us on:
To make a service guarantee enquiry in relation to a fault on your Standard Telephone Service, including a missed appointment, call us on:
TTY users can contact us on the above numbers via the National Relay Service 133 677 (TTY).