Competition may force improvement in Telecom's erratic inquiry service

Sixteen of the most excruciating words in the English language follow with apologies to those readers of a nervous disposition: Thank you for calling directory inquiries. Your call is queued and will be answered in rotation . . .

The voice, trivia buffs may be aware, is that of Conor Mullen, brother of Larry, the drummer with U2. Unfortunately the talented stage and television actor is fast becoming a hate figure among those who have occasion to ring Telecom Eireann's directory inquiry services and are forced to endure his placating message ad nauseam only, in many cases, to be cut off.

For some time now the service has, to put it mildly, been erratic. A correspondent to this newspaper recently wrote to complain about "the appalling state of Telecom Eireann and its inquiry numbers".

Derek Hill from Donegal deplored the fact that "sometimes one has to wait up to 10 minutes to get through" and asked whether anything could be done about it. It is a question that Telecom Eireann's new shareholders may well be asking in a market where increasingly customer service marks leading companies out from the rest.

Responding to the complaints (the company admits it has received negative feedback from customers), a Telecom spokeswoman said two factors have led to the current level of service:

"First there was the introduction of new software which caused problems, but that has now been resolved. The second issue, which continues to affect the service, has been the rationalisation of staff. We are currently training and recruiting new staff in order to resolve the delays and we expect the service to improve in a matter of weeks," she said.

Even more worrying for Telecom is the arrival six weeks ago of a directory inquiries service which actually works. Posters bearing the slogan "Your new number for Directory Inquiries" had many people thinking Telecom Eireann had changed its number, but in fact the 11850 number is a product of a separate Irish-owned company called Conduit Europe. The timing couldn't have been better.

According to Liam Young, Conduit's managing director, they have already cornered around 10 per cent of the market for domestic directory inquiries, half the target they hoped to hit after 18 months. Given that the market is estimated at around 40 million calls annually, this is astonishingly fast growth. Telecom Eireann, meanwhile, says it receives 30 million calls to directory inquiries per year.

Callers to the 11850 service are answered in an average of four seconds. Telecom Eireann currently admits to an average wait of 60 seconds, if the number is not engaged in the first place.

Mr Young, a former Telecom Eireann and BT employee, says that with the advent of deregulation all over Europe, many state telecommunications companies have been making strides to become more competitive but have neglected the area of directory inquiries:

"This means that consumers are very open to new inquiry services, which is obviously beneficial for us," he says. Dublin-based Conduit has also won tenders to provide directory inquiry services for Esat Digifone, Orange in Switzerland, One in Austria and Colt in the UK.

Users say the 11850 service also compares more favourably to Telecom Eireann in the phone manner and general helpfulness of its 250 operators. "Our whole basis for winning customers is providing good, friendly, efficient service so that clients will call again and again," says Mr Young.

And though anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise, the Telecom Eireann spokeswoman did not accept the perception that Telecom operators are often rude or unhelpful when a caller is eventually put through to one of its 600 staff.

Where the services also differ is in price structure. Conduit charges 27.5p (excl VAT) per minute with per-second charging after each minute. An additional service, where the caller is put through to their chosen number directly, is billed at the same rate.

Telecom, on the other hand, charges a flat rate of 28.5p (excl VAT) for three numbers regardless of length of call. There are no plans as yet to introduce the call completion service.

Directory inquiries, both companies agree, is an area of considerable growth - one of the main factors is the massive increase in mobile phone use - and has potential for even further expansion. The winners of the directory inquiries wars will eventually be those providers who can offer the service that a public with increasingly less time to spare requires.

In the meantime, Thank you for calling directory inquiries. Your call is queued etc etc etc.