Sky, Virgin, TalkTalk and PlusNet Scoop UK ISP Simplifydigital 2014 Awards

Comparison site Simplifydigital.co.uk has announced the winners of their annual 2014 Customer Choice Awards, which saw all of the biggest broadband ISPs, except BT and EE, win various categories based on their levels of customer satisfaction. But sadly you won’t find any smaller ISPs listed.

Apparently the results were largely based on a survey of 2,911 customers, which ran from Thursday 8th May to Thursday 15th May 2014. A series of standardised questions with multi-point scales were then used to gauge satisfaction in four areas: Overall service, customer support, reliability and value for money.

Overall the survey found that 74% of respondents were generally satisfied with their ISP, while 71% were satisfied with the reliability of their service and satisfaction with customer support was 67%. But only 57% were satisfied with their provider’s value for money.

The 2014 Winners

Plusnet

• Best Value Broadband & Phone Provider

70% of Plusnet phone & broadband customers rated their service as good/excellent value for money

• Best Customer Service

74% of Plusnet customers rated the provider as good/excellent for quality of customer service

Sky Broadband

• Best TV, Broadband & Phone Provider

77% of Sky TV, broadband & phone customers rated their provider as good/excellent for overall service

TalkTalk

• Best Value Broadband, Phone & TV Provider

54% of TalkTalk TV, broadband & phone customers rated their service as good/excellent value for money

Virgin Media

• Best Superfast Broadband & Phone Provider

83% of Virgin Media fibre broadband and home phone customers rated their provider as good/excellent for overall service

• Innovation Award

Awarded to Virgin Media by a panel of Simplifydigital “industry experts”, for their “ground-breaking” Quad Play bundles launched on 29th May 2014.

But as usual you won’t find any smaller ISPs being mentioned above because most of the big commercial comparison sites shun them, which is a shame since many smaller providers (e.g. Zen Internet, AAISP etc.) tend to have a good reputation for quality.

Similarly it was good to see Virgin Media launch its new quad-play bundles but they weren’t especially “ground-breaking” (TalkTalk has been offering bundles with mobile add-ons for a while etc.). Cityfibre’s FTTP deal with Sky and TalkTalk or perhaps UK Broadband Ltd’s launch of wireless ISP Relish in London (ok.. their second attempt) would arguably have been more suitable.

We’re also unsure why TalkTalk won the Best Value Broadband, Phone & TV Provider gong, were the rest really worse than a score of 54%? Surely somebody most of done better if the survey average for “value for money” was 57%.