Ofcom report on UK directory enquiries “a whitewash”

Ofcom, the UK’s new mega-regulator has published a report saying that the privatisation of the UK’s directory enquiries has been a success and that competition has had the desired effect of driving down prices. Many readers of that report as well as users of Britain’s highly variable 118 services will beg to differ.

The Ofcom report is based on a survey of 1,075 British adults carried out by the National Opinion Polls organisation and finds that post-privatisation the number of people using directory enquiries has fallen, with 59.8% now using the services from time to time, compared to 66% when BT held the monopoly. Furthermore, 25% of directory enquirers use the new ‘118’ services less frequently than they did when BT was the only show in town while a mere 1% are using them more often.

Significantly, 9% of respondents have given up using directory enquiries altogether, preferring instead to use the cheaper alternative of the Internet to find the information they seek.

For the study, Ofcom also made 5,880 so-called “mystery shopping” calls to the Top 30 of the astonishing 120 directory enquiry companies that now comprise the UK sector. It found that 87% of numbers are now given correctly, up from 67% in the months immediately after the privatisation, and that calls are answered within an average time of eight seconds, as opposed to anything up to the minute it took before the opening up of the market.

Ofcom claims that, overall, competition has driven down both the costs of directory enquiry services and the time it takes to get a number. However, a closer reading of the statistics soon reveals something nasty in the woodshed.

Thus, whilst these days it might only take an average of eight seconds for an agent to answer a directory enquiries call, it takes an average of 60.6 seconds for The Number’s popular 118 118 service to find a residential number and it costs 58 pence. Calls to 118 118 produce the right number in 86% of cases.

Meanwhile, calls to BT’s 118 500 service last an average of 54.2 seconds and cost 54 pence. Furthermore, BT’s accuracy in providing numbers is just 79% – and this from a company with one of the largest, most comprehensive and, allegedly, most up-to-date databases on the planet.

Nonetheless, Ofcom persists in its claim that the liberalised market is working well and to bolster it emphasises that 87% of directory enquiry search results are now accurate compared with the 62% level found in a survey published last autumn.

This is utter, disingenuous rubbish. What Ofcom isn’t telling us is that the two figures are not based on the same methodology or criteria. The truth is that since last year, when Oftel ran the last survey, Ofcom came into being and immediately moved the goalposts.

Basically, the old Oftel surveys were based on a reasonable mixture of test calls where both business and residential numbers were requested.