Broadband satisfaction continues to fall

Customer service? More like lip service, says uswitch.com, announcing the results of the UK’s leading independent home phone and broadband customer satisfaction report.

Free broadband is old news – this year it’s all about customer service, according to the providers at least. Yet despite endless promises that customers are now in for a better time, a new consumer poll by uSwitch.com reveals that ‘this ain’t happening yet’, as broadband satisfaction continues to tumble.

Empty promises - a quarter (25%) of customers are not satisfied with their broadband provider, a 3%decline in satisfaction since October

Small is beautiful –Plusnet leapfrogs the big boys to win the crown of Best Overall Provider with 78% of customers satisfied

Biggest loser – consumers placeOrange at the bottom for the second time running with 400,000 customers (35%) not satisfied

All TalkTalk –massiveinvestment has yet to pay dividends as TalkTalk satisfaction drops a further 1% - just 69% of customers are satisfied placing it second to bottom in the poll

Tie-break – round 1 of the Murdoch versus Branson battle for happy customers ends in a tie-break as Sky and Virgin Media come joint second with AOL

Home phone happiness – almost 8 out of 10 (78%) customers are satisfied, a 4% rise since October with Tiscali at the top (87%) and Virgin Media at the bottom (76%)

Deal or no deal – consumers vote BT best for customer support (62%) but worst for value for money – over 4 million BT customers do not believe they are getting a good deal

Broadband companies may be ‘talking the talk’, but have yet to ‘walk the walk’, according to the latest home phone and broadband Customer Satisfaction Report, announced today by uSwitch.com, the independent online comparison and switching service. The UK’s most comprehensive report into customer satisfaction, based on responses from nearly 9,000 home phone and nearly 11,000 broadband customers shows that, despite promises from companies that things are on the up, customers have yet to see any signs of improvement. In fact, while home phone customer satisfaction is up by 4%, broadband satisfaction has continued to plummet and for the first time, a quarter of customers (25%) are not satisfied with their broadband provider. Standards have dropped by 3% since October 2006 and 10% since March 2006, the last survey before ‘free’ broadband was launched.

Best broadband – Plusnet, having experienced a severe drop of 16% last year following a raft of service issues, has sprung back to take top position in the broadband survey. Nearly 8 out of 10 (78%) customers are now satisfied with its service. Plusnet, the smallest company in the survey with just 2% of the market, was bought by BT last November, and this year celebrated its 10th birthday with a wave of new offers including free set up and hardware for new customers.

Worst broadband – Orange and TalkTalk, together owning 14% of the market with over 2 million customers, have failed to pull themselves out of the bottom two spots in the league. Orange comes last for the second time running with just 65% of customers satisfied. It has seen its satisfaction rating drop 18% over the last 14 months - uncannily around the same time that it launched ‘free’ broadband – and experienced a recent blow when the Advertising Standards Authority found it guilty of misleading consumers in its advertising. Meanwhile, TalkTalk has yet to reap the rewards of its £15 million investment into customer service. Just 69% of its customers are satisfied, a drop of 1% since October, despite its own assurances that connection queues have disappeared and call centre waiting times have shortened. The performance of both companies suggests that ‘free’ does not necessarily ensure happiness, as the customers paying for their broadband appear to be happier than the ones who are not.

Home phone winners and losers – Tiscali has come top for the second time running with nearly 9 out of 10 (87%) customers satisfied. Virgin Media comes bottom with 76% of customers satisfied, an amalgamation of good and bad legacies following last year’s merger: in October Telewest came top of the poll (80%) while ntl came bottom (70%). The results of the home phone survey show a trade-off between value for money and customer support. While TalkTalk holds the top spot for value with 2.3 million customers (76%) satisfied, it comes bottom for customer support – just 1.4 million customers (41%) are satisfied with the level of support they receive. BT, on the other hand, tops the customer support category with 6.5 million customers (62%) satisfied, but comes bottom in the value stakes with 60% satisfied: over 4 million BT customers do not believe they are getting a good deal.

Chris Frost, communications expert at uSwitch.com, comments: “This time last year, free broadband was a novelty. Customers signed up by the masses to experience the broadband phenomenon, often for the first time. Now it has become a life essential, so when things go wrong, they usually go badly wrong. Unlike last year’s survey when providers were in many cases simply overwhelmed by demand, this year the problems are more technical. New advances in broadband technology appear to be having an adverse effect, with connection problems and service interruptions occurring all too frequently. Customers have found themselves having to make numerous phone calls to get their problems fixed and this would explain why the score for overall technical support has dropped 11% since March 2006.”

For the first time, the uSwitch.com survey has interviewed the broadband customers of Sky and Virgin Media. Despite the on-going spat between the two providers, both claiming to offer a better deal than the other, the results astonishingly show the two media giants coming neck and neck with a score of 76%, placing them in second place alongside AOL. While Sky takes a clear victory for ‘value for money’, scoring 83% compared to Virgin Media’s 68%, its customers are far from happy with the level of support they receive. Just 48% of customers are satisfied with customer support and a meagre 42% are satisfied with the technical support – compared to Virgin Media’s 55% and 53% respectively. The survey also suggests that Sky needs to improve the clarity of its bills: customers find them the least ‘easy to understand’, coming bottom of this category with a score of 68%.

Frost continues: “While Sky customers are obviously happy with their deal in terms of value for money, the fact that less than half are satisfied with the support they receive is a real sting in the tail. The phased approach that the company has taken to processing orders could have contributed to this score. Customers have complained of registering for Sky broadband, informing their existing provider of their plans to leave, and then being forced to wait a number of weeks without any broadband at all before being connected to their new service.

“Virgin Media also has a long way to go to improve satisfaction. Its overall score of 76% is a way off the impressive 85% scored by Virgin.net, winner of last October’s poll. Virgin Media has pledged to place customer service ‘at the heart of the business’ and last year reported that it had invested £10 million, hired 300 extra customer service employees and improved its customer service training. However, as the situation stands at the moment, 1 million cable customers are not satisfied with their phone service and 820,000 are not satisfied with their broadband.”

In the meantime, TalkTalk and AOL, both owned by the Carphone Warehouse, are currently sitting at two ends of the spectrum and are being positioned as separate brands – a ‘no frills’ and a ‘premium’. CEO Charles Dunstone will need to consider whether it makes sense to maintain this strategy, or ‘do a Virgin Media’ and combine a customer service winner with a loser. Dunstone was quoted in June 2006 as saying ‘I think if in a year’s time it’s still as bad then people will just write us off’. With a large proportion of free broadband customers now nearing the end of their contract, never a truer word may have been said.

Frost concludes: “It’s great to see Plusnet back on form and its performance puts its larger competitors to shame. The fact that a quarter of customers are not satisfied with their broadband provider should be a distinct warning siren for companies to up their game. Major players, including TalkTalk and BT, vowed that they would reach the top of the customer service league this year. Is it a case of all TalkTalk, no action?”

“Our message to broadband companies is to stop telling us what you’re doing and actually start doing it. Customers are entitled to the best of both worlds and should not have to choose between price and service. However, while this remains the case, it’s important that the 7 million home phone and 6 million broadband customers who are likely to review their existing deal in the next 12 months do their research before entering into a new contract. By comparing both prices and service levels among providers, customers should be able to find the best deal to suit their needs.”