Poor Showing for Telecoms in Top 50 UK Customer Satisfaction Index
Telecommunications (mobile, broadband ISP and phone) providers have this year given a poor showing in the top 50 UK customer satisfaction index, although two Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) did at least make it into the top list. The highest ranked was Tesco Mobile at 7th, while giffgaff trailed far behind in 44th.
The telecoms and media category of the index also includes BT, EE, O2, Plusnet, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Three UK, Virgin Media + Mobile and Vodafone but none of those managed to make it into the top 50. Sadly this is not much of a surprise because the telecoms and media sector is the second to last lowest rated of all (customer satisfaction of 74.3 out of 100 – a slight improvement of 0.3 points on 2017) and sadly doesn’t cover smaller providers.
By comparison overall customer satisfaction stands at 77.9 (out of 100), down 0.2 points compared to January 2018 and 0.3 points compared to July 2017 – the first time since January 2015 that two consecutive UKCSI surveys show a decline in overall satisfaction. The best rated sector was Retail (Non-food) on 82.1, while Retail (Food) came second on 81.2.
In terms of customer priorities for improvement in the telecoms sector, some 32.4% said it should be easier to contact the right person to get help, while 23.6% called for better website navigation and 21.5% wanted better billing. We should add that the index itself is produced by surveying 10,000 consumers in the United Kingdom.
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 X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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The problem with ISPs and telecoms companies is 1) Foreign call centres and 2) Regardless of location call centre staff are generally just reading from scripts and have next to no understanding of the technology they are being asked to fix.
Trying to get past 1st line support of “switch it off for 30 minutes then switch it back on” is nothing more than the agent getting rid of the call. They aren’t paid enough to care and often not trained well enough to troubleshot.
Mobile companies solution for everything is a replacement SIM, but the success rate of that fixing anything is very low and identifiable anyway, but the customer has to go through the process to get anywhere. I’ve had several “we’ll send a new SIM” fix it suggestions over the years and a new SIM never fixed it. Don’t they collect statistics? In the past the popular one was turn the phone off and take out the battery for a day, but now batteries are non-removable that particular fix suggestion has long gone, so it’s just a new SIM now that seems to be the panacea for all issues.
These companies are employing call answering staff, not technical support staff.
Back in the day there was the local repair shop, when phones came along there was technical support. Now we have the internet. Life moves on. The support is out there if we bother to find it, and as good, if not better, than it ever has been.
God, and business, helps those who help themselves. Lazy people have always had trouble, and always will. A little bit of self-help goes a long way. As it always has.
Most of us though just want to find someone to blame; then “we’ve done our bit”. But other people are not at our beck and call, whatever high opinion we have of our importance inside our heads. Nothing is perfect, not even us.
Is this a comment on the content of the article or some vacuous philosophical musing? Three paragraphs and nothing actually said.
You mention the internet in the context of it being a gateway to self help. That is true. Unless it is the internet you’re having trouble with in which case ones self help options become rather more limited and or involved don’t they?
Everybody wants to blame someone but in the case of large consumer facing businesses that do not seem to learn from repeating the same mistakes; there is surely someone at fault?