Confidence in broadband providers slumps

Consumers are losing trust in their broadband supplier and 'free' broadband offers have contributed to the current freefall in confidence, according to a customer survey.

This was the conclusion of a Customer Satisfaction Report from price comparison site uswitch which surveyed more than 15,000 broadband customers.

It found a nine per cent drop across the board in satisfaction levels as service providers struggle to cope with rising customer numbers.

Customer service is the area where most of these companies are failing, according to the report. Bottom of the league table for customer satisfaction are Orange and Carphone Warehouse.

Although both launched 'free' broadband offers this year and are seen as offering the best "value for money" in broadband access, they also came joint bottom for offering customer service satisfaction.

The survey said one in three of each service's customers was unhappy with this element of their service. To add to their woes, the report also found these architects of ‘free broadband’, come bottom in eight out of 10 categories because of ongoing problems.

Orange recently suffered a major broadband outage affecting 100,000 customers within its local loop unbundling network at its peak; Talktalk has been accused of service interruptions and delayed connections, and in its latest results showed that over 200,000 customers were still waiting to receive an actual live broadband connection.

However, the biggest drop in overall customer satisfaction was experienced by Plusnet, which fell from being top of the league with nine in ten happy customers in March, to having an overall satisfaction score of only seven in 10 in October.

uswitch said Plusnet customers have experienced a raft of service issues this year, ranging from service outages to the accidental deletion of over 700Gb of customer emails.

Steve Weller, uswitch head of communications services, said the problem was the scramble by service providers to sign up as many customers as they could without making sure they had invested enough to make sure customer service needs were met.

He said the bundling together of various services such as home phone, television and broadband was also putting pressure on customer services, making it more likely for consumers to need to contact customer services on a more regular basis.

Mr Weller said: "We have witnessed a ‘broadband land-grab’ over the last seven months, with nearly 650,000 new subscribers since March and a net increase of over 1.5 million broadband customers since the start of the year.

"However, it’s disappointing to see that the majority of providers are failing to accompany the growth in customer numbers by sufficient growth in customer service operations and the required investment in their technology to ensure that they are looking after customer needs in an acceptable manner.”

The study also reveals that consumer trust in suppliers is at an all-time low; only four in 10 believe their supplier is ensuring they are given the best deal.

A quarter of broadband customers review their deal every six months and just over half review it every year.

So although price is still the most important factor for consumers, uswitch said as the pricing war intensifies, it more important than ever for consumers to check both price and customer service.

The full report can be read on the uswitch site. But broadband provider Virgin.net came top, with 85 per cent of customers expressing satisfaction, Telewest came second second with 83 per centand Tiscali third with 80 per cent.