Broadband Satisfaction Study Hails Zen Internet, as TalkTalk Hit Bottom

Consumer magazine Which? has this week published the outcome from their latest reader survey of broadband ISP satisfaction, which saw Zen Internet and Utility Warehouse win the highest ratings. Unfortunately the same could not be said for TalkTalk, which had the lowest score by far.

The survey itself was conducted a couple of months ago with a few thousand members of the magazine. Respondents were then asked to rate their provider on a mix of several different categories, such as speed, customer support / service, reliability, value for money, clarity of bills, ease of set-up and so forth.

After that each provider was then awarded an overall satisfaction score (100% is naturally the best possible outcome). Unfortunately nobody came close to the 100% mark, although Zen did score the best on 83% and that’s a big improvement from last year when they came 2nd on 75% (we’ve included the 2015 results in brackets below).

Broadband Satisfaction Survey Results Q1 2016 (2015 Result)

1. Zen Internet 83% (75%)
2. Utility Warehouse 80% (73%)
3. Plusnet 65% (72%)
4. John Lewis Broadband 64% (76%)
5. Post Office 59% (61%)
6. Vodafone 58% (n/a)
7. Virgin Media 54% (52%)
8. Sky Broadband 50% (48%)
9. EE 49% (50%)
10. BT 47% (45%)
11. TalkTalk 38% (48%)

A more detailed breakdown of the results can also be found inside the magazine, although we apologise for being unable to make the text bigger (it wouldn’t fit).

Overall Zen, Utility Warehouse, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband and BT all showed a small to modest improvement in their ratings, while the others suffered a fall (Plusnet are probably being punished a bit for last year’s cutting back of service features, such as slower FTTC uploads and the removal of 24/7 phone support).

However the biggest fall of all was suffered by TalkTalk, which is hardly surprising given the multiple cyber-attacks and failure to protect their customers personal data. More recently the ISP has been attempting to win back hearts and minds by improving its security features and offering lots of freebies, so we wouldn’t be surprised if their rating improves next year (assuming they aren’t hit by another major snafu).

As usual there are some caveats to Which?’s survey and readers will note the distinct lack of other small and highly reputable ISPs, such as AAISP or IDNet etc. The magazine’s survey sample was simply too small to cover the entire market and so we only get a partial reflection; take with a pinch of salt.

It’s also worth contrasting these results with Ofcom’s latest round of consumer complaints data (here), which noted that Sky Broadband and Virgin Media received proportionally fewer moans than the otherwise reasonably rated PlusNet.