Kingston Communications UK (ISP Karoo , Eclipse Internet etc.), a supplier of telecommunications, broadband ISP and telephony services, has started a new campaign to make customer service calls FREE across the UK. The campaign highlights new research by YouGov, which found that 87% of people believe they shouldn’t have to pay to report a service problem.

Interestingly, 68% of consumers believe that companies use customer service lines to make more money out of them and 40% believe the practice may deter businesses from ensuring their products and services work effectively.


The YouGov poll also indicated that businesses are keeping their customers waiting too long – with 45% typically having to wait more than five minutes before they get to speak with a customer service representative. Furthermore, almost a third of respondents (28%) believed their problems were rarely resolved on their first call.

To be fair, hiring staff to manage support lines is an expensive business and some ISPs might be inclined to raise prices to compensate for offering free support calls. Still, quite a few ISPs do at least offer local rate support, and if some providers were more effective at delivering a good service then there would be no need to call in the first place.

Kingston Communications itself obviously claims to offer free customer service calls, supported by a local team of customer and technical support staff. However it might be helpful if KC stuck to their own rules first, sibling ISP Eclipse Internet offers an 0845 number; Ofcom says calls to these are charged at between 0.5p and 2p per minute depending on the time of day from most BT landlines.