TalkTalk Rated the Worst ISP by 2017 Which? Consumer Broadband Survey

The latest biannual survey of UK phone and broadband providers by consumer magazine Which? has once again named Zen Internet as the best overall ISP (85% for customer satisfaction), but the same could not be said for TalkTalk that continues to languish at the bottom on a score of 40%.

The survey was conducted between June and July 2017 with 1,709 telecoms customers (way down from the 3,118 members surveyed in the last report). As usual the respondents were asked to rate their ISP using a mix of several different categories (e.g. speed, customer satisfaction, value for money and likelihood to recommend). A minimum of just 30 responses was required to give a rating on any particular measure.

Traditionally the biggest broadband providers tend to get pushed down to the bottom of consumer surveys like this and so it’s no surprise to find that three of them are also among the lowest rated. Sadly Talk Talk has been the habitual bottom dweller in Which?’s survey and that’s hardly a surprise given past problems, not to mention that 23% of their customers felt as if the broadband speed delivered was “poor” or “very poor“.

Alex Neill, Which? Managing Director of Home Services, said:

“Far too many people are still getting a poor deal from their broadband provider. Big players need to improve their service across the board or expect their customers to take their business elsewhere.”

By comparison Zen continued to hold the top spot, which is a position that they’ve tended to dominate for the past few years, and Virgin Media remains by far the highest rated of the biggest four providers, albeit only on a score of 54% (this is an improvement from 52% six months ago).

The biggest movers in terms of score change over the past six months were the Utility Warehouse (dropped from 81% to 76%), EE (improved from 48% to 53%) and Sky Broadband (dropped from 49% to 45%), while all the rest saw more marginal changes of + or – 1-2%.

Broadband Satisfaction Survey Results 2017 – H2 (H1 Result)
1. Zen Internet 85% (86%)
2. Utility Warehouse 76% (81%)
3. SSE 68% (66%)
4. John Lewis Broadband 66% (68%)
5. Plusnet 63% (65%)
6. Virgin Media 54% (52%)
7. EE 53% (48%)
8. Vodafone 49% (50%)
9. Post Office 47% (48%)
10. BT 46% (45%)
11. Sky Broadband 45% (49%)
12. TalkTalk 40% (38%)

As usual there are some caveats to this survey and readers will note the distinct lack of other small and highly reputable ISPs, such as AAISP and iDNET etc. The 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. Unfortunately this is always likely to be the outcome when data is only extracted from a small membership pool.

We should highlight that Sky Broadband tends to rank much higher in other surveys (they usually come alongside Virgin Media), such as Ofcom’s own satisfaction study (here). Sky also receives the fewest consumer complaints among all of the biggest players, at least according to the regulator.