By: MarkJ - 26 May, 2009 (8:05 AM) - Score: 759 - Fixed Line Broadband

Have you ever wanted to seek help or advice from an ISP without using the phone line? Perhaps your location (e.g. work) makes it too difficult to use the phone or the providers voice lines might be too expensive, maybe you suffer from hearing problems. Either way, the ability of an ISP to offer fast and effective customer sales and support advice via email is often crucially important.

We were keen to discover whether UK broadband ISPs could still provide an effective and useful level of email support and advice to potential customers. To do this we devised a simple, if admittedly somewhat anecdotal, test that would involve the emailing of several general questions about broadband services to nineteen of the UK’s best known and largely independent ISPs.

The results, which factored in the speed of reply and accuracy of answers to our questions, appears to support the notion that big isn’t always best, at least when it comes to email based customer support/service quality.

The Top 5
1. AAISP
2. Fast.co.uk
3. NewNet
4. IDNet
5. Demon Internet

The top five positions were almost all exclusively held by smaller providers. However this should not come as a surprise, it has long been known that small providers often cost more but also put extra effort into their service quality and support. This makes them ideal choices for both business users and consumers seeking to avoid hassle with greater reliability.

The full article can be read here:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/articles/09_uk_isp_email_support_quality_rated/