Calls to broadband helplines increases
2010 has been another busy year for the broadband industry with over 18 million homes now relying on their service to stay connected to the outside world. But, as broadband usage has increased, so too has the pressure on technical helplines. A new report by independent price comparison and switching service, uSwitch.com, reveals a 25% jump in the number of calls to technical support lines this year, with 20 million calls now being made.
According to the survey of over 7,500 customers, each call lasts an average of 15 minutes but five minutes of this time is spent waiting to be put through to an operator. And, while this is a free service for some, others are forced to pay up to 86p per call. In total, calling for help is costing consumers up to £4 million a year on top of their regular broadband bill.
Nearly seven million broadband customers (36%) have called for technical help over the last year, with network connection problems the most common cause for complaint - when a broadband service fails to work or is frequently cut off. Most customers have to call technical helplines at least twice to fix the same problem - in fact just 37% have successfully resolved a problem in just one call.
Overall, just 58% of broadband customers are satisfied with the technical support offered by their provider and over two million (12%) are not happy. O2 and PlusNet score best in the poll with 74% of their customers satisfied, while Orange scores an abysmal 43%. The scores appear to match the time customers have to spend waiting to be put through to someone. PlusNet customers can expect to wait around three minutes on hold while Orange customers could be listening to hold music for twice as long. TalkTalk customers reported the longest wait times at a frustrating seven minutes per call.
Ernest Doku, communications expert at uSwitch.com, comments: "It is disappointing to see major broadband providers still charging their customers for calling their helplines. We are not talking about simple set-up problems - customers are calling because their service is down. It seems ludicrous that customers are the ones to be penalised when it's likely to be a fault on the network.
"Broadband is no longer a novelty - it's a life essential. When things go wrong consumers need to know their provider will go the extra mile to get their service back up and running quickly and at no extra cost. In such a competitive arena it's surprising that they haven't wised up to the fact that customers expect more from their broadband service than a cheap deal. If they are not happy they will simply switch away."