Managing your SFoA summary delivery

Some CSPs do it well, and many fail to do it at all.  A copy of your Standard Form of Agreement summary has to be given to customers at the start of the contract, and then a short reminder each two years.

Are you compliant ?  Can you prove it ?

Here are some hints for getting it right.

There’s more to an SFoA than an SFoA

There are several good reasons to use an SFoA instead of individual customer contracts.  But the convenience comes at a cost.  For instance, you must comply with the Telecommunications (Standard Form of Agreement Information) Determination 2003.

The Determination requires that a CSP with an SFoA:

• creates a summary of it in a specific form
• gives the summary to ACMA
• makes any changes ACMA requires
• gives customers a copy of the summary at the start of the contract
• gives them a reminder notice about it every two years.

New customers must receive a copy of the summary

The Determination requires you to give a copy of the summary at the time of first supply, or a.s.a.p. afterwards.

Permitted methods of delivery

• personal delivery
• post to address in your records
• email, if the customer has agreed to receive notices at that address
• it is OK to send it with a bill or other document, by one of the above methods.

What about notice by hyperlink ?

We’re often asked whether you can send an SFoA summary as a hyperlink in an email – assuming the customer has agreed to receive notices by email.

The Determination doesn’t allow for it, but the Australian Communications Authority (which has since become ACMA) informally agreed that this was an acceptable practice as long as the hyperlink is direct to the document itself and not merely to a web site where the customer can find the document.

We think this position would apply with ACMA today.

What if you don’t give the copy ?

The customer remains a ‘new customer’ for the purposes of the Determination until they have received the summary.

So the obligation to send it never goes away.

Existing customers must receive a notice about the summary, each 24 months

No less often that each 24 months (starting on the date they received the original copy of the summary) a customer must receive a particular notice about your current summary.

This is where many CSPs fall down.

What the notice must say

The notice must include statements that:

• an up-to-date copy of the relevant summary is available from the CSP
• customer can get a free copy by:

(a)   calling a number in the notice

(b)  downloading it from the CSP’s web site

(c)   lodging a request on the CSP’s web site.

Permitted methods of delivery

• personal delivery
• post to address in your records
• email, if the customer has agreed to receive notices at that address
• by SMS
• it is OK to send it with a bill or other document, by one of the above methods.

SMS ???

Yes, it’s a rare example of a consumer protection law that permits SMS notification.  But remember, that’s only for the reminder notice about the summary, not for the summary itself.

Getting the evidence right

Across their regulatory compliance, many businesses fall down in record keeping, or having some good proof that they have complied with the law.

If a particular customer denies receiving the summary or a notice, you need to be able to show it was sent.  If you’re not systematic about that, you may not have sufficient evidence.

Some businesses include the summary in a Welcome Pack, and that’s especially suitable where the pack includes log on details or something else that proves the customer must have received it.

Some of my clients send the reminder notice to all customers on a fixed date every two years.  That means that a customer who joined only recently may get a reminder a relatively short time later, but so what ?  It means that the CSP only needs to send one mass email on (for instance) New Year’s Day every second year, and compliance is assured – assuming your sign up processes include customer consent to receiving the reminder by email.