PlusNet, Virgin Media and Post Office Rated Best for Customer Service
Broadband and phone providers PlusNet, Virgin Media and the Post Office have come top of a new survey of customer service quality, which questioned some 14,000 respondents about their experiences. Sadly TalkTalk / AOL and EE could all be found at the lowest rated end of the scale.
The survey by MoneySavingExpert split the respondents into two groups, one for home phone providers and another for home broadband. Despite this the results for both categories were very similar, with roughly the same providers occupying both the top (highest / best rated) and bottom (lowest / poorest rated) of each list.
NOTE: The results in brackets are from the last study in January 2015.
Broadband Provider Ratings
| RANK | PROVIDER | GREAT | OK | POOR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plusnet | 68% (71%) | 23% (21%) | 9% (8%) |
| 2 | Virgin Media | 56% (54%) | 30% (30%) | 14% (16%) |
| 3 | Post Office | 41% (48%) | 37% (36%) | 22% (17%) |
| 4 | Sky Broadband | 38% (45%) | 35% (34%) | 27% (22%) |
| 5 | BT | 33% (33%) | 32% (34%) | 35% (33%) |
| 6= | EE | 28% (34%) | 32% (29%) | 40% (37%) |
| 6= | TalkTalk | 25% (32%) | 38% (37%) | 38% (31%) |
| 7 | AOL (TalkTalk) | 20% (26%) | 39% (32%) | 42% (42%) |
Home Phone Provider Ratings
| RANK | PROVIDER | GREAT | OK | POOR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plusnet | 70% (74%) | 24% (21%) | 6% (5%) |
| 2 | Post Office | 54% (62%) | 36% (28%) | 9% (10%) |
| 3 | Virgin Media | 49% (47%) | 40% (41%) | 11% (11%) |
| 4 | Sky Broadband | 42% (49%) | 48% (41%) | 10% (9%) |
| 5 | Fuel Broadband (Primus) | 42% (40%) | 37% (31%) | 22% (29%) |
| 6 | BT | 34% (35%) | 46% (46%) | 20% (19%) |
| 7 | AOL | 33% (42%) | 45% (45%) | 22% (13%) |
| 8 | TalkTalk | 33% (40%) | 44% (42%) | 23% (19%) |
| 9 | EE | 30% (38%) | 45% (37%) | 25% (25%) |
In response a spokesperson for TalkTalk has complained that the “poll does not reflect the reduction in complaints we are seeing internally or in Ofcom’s data, and is based on responses from a very small sample.” On the other hand Ofcom’s data, especially their complaints report, is also based on a fairly small dataset (here); although they appear to get EE’s position about right.
Meanwhile there’s the usual frustration with such studies only depicting the largest providers and ignoring almost all of the smaller ones, which are often able to deliver a higher quality. One other point to make is that AOL hasn’t been selling its own fixed line services for a while, instead they’ve been redirecting customers to TalkTalk’s (parent) website.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.
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