Satisfaction with broadband providers falls

Two of Britain’s “free” broadband providers came bottom of the pile in a survey on customer satisfaction, according to the latest survey from uSwitch.

The price comparison site said as the novelty of “free broadband” wears off, Talktalk and Orange customers (which together own 14 per cent of the overall broadband market) were earmarked as the worst for their customer service in a survey of 11,000 broadband users and 9,000 home phone customers.

Orange was voted the lowest in the satisfaction charts for the second year running with 400,000 (35 per cent) of its customers saying they were unhappy.

Despite a big investment into its customer service systems Talktalk found itself in second place, with only a third of its customers saying they were pleased with its service.

This was a huge contrast to non “free” broadband provider Plusnet, which was voted as the best amongst its customers with eight out of 10 (78 per cent) saying they were pleased with the service they were given.

However, across the board consumers complained about customer service; a quarter of the biggest broadband providers customers claimed they were unimpressed with the customer service given to them. There was a three per cent drop in satisfaction levels recorded by the organisation in October last year.

Uswitch spokesman Chris Frost said: “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.

“New advances in broadband technology appear to be having an adverse effect, with connection problems and service interruptions occurring all too frequently. Customers have [therefore] found themselves having to make numerous phone calls to get their problems fixed,” he added.

On the home telephone front, smaller companies were found to triumph over their bigger counterparts with 87 per cent of Tiscali's customers saying they were happy with the customer service they received compared to 75 per cent of Virgin Media customers.