UK telecom regulator Ofcom has released the latest broadband satisfaction report for 2014.
The following is the highlight of the broadband satisfaction report.
Overall contact
Ofcom said customer contact with broadband providers was lower than in 2013 (22 percent vs. 26 percent). BT was the only provider to see a significant decrease in contact levels, down 8pp to 22 percent. The proportion of contacts considered to be complaints was broadly similar to 2011 (35 percent vs. 31 percent), with no significant differences by provider.
Of the three broad categories, fault/repair was the most common reason for contact in the UK broadband sector (46 percent), with no significant differences by provider. Slow broadband connection speeds continue to be the most common specific reason for contact (19 percent).
Four in ten broadband customers (41 percent) had their issue resolved in a single contact, an increase on the 2013 measure (36 percent). All individual providers included in this report were broadly comparable to the sector average and 2013.
Customer service
Ofcom said satisfaction with broadband customer services (69 percent) increased since it begans monitoring this (60 percent in 2009). Virgin Media reported significantly higher than average levels of satisfaction (76 percent) while BT reported satisfaction that was significantly lower than average (60 percent). Virgin Media was the only provider in this market to report higher than average satisfaction with complaints handling (68 percent vs. 52 percent).
Compared to 2011 (when we began monitoring satisfaction with complaints’ handling), at an overall level there was a rise in satisfaction (52 percent vs. 38 percent in 2011) with this largely attributable to Sky broadband (58 percent vs. 43 percent) and Virgin Media customers (68 percent vs. 38 percent).
Sky and Virgin Media both reported significantly higher than average satisfaction on a number of aspects of customer service, including having advice / information which was useful, and the advisors’ ability to understand the issue and identify the problem.
BT and TalkTalk reported significantly lower than average satisfaction in some aspects of customer service. For BT, these included including ease of finding provider contact details, speed of answer, being kept informed, and effective logging of query details. For TalkTalk, these included having useful advice / information, advisors’ ability to understand issues and identify the problem, and effective logging of query details.
