BT may be the biggest broadband provider in the UK, but in Which?’s latest customer satisfaction survey it came dead last.
Scoring just 45% overall, Which?’s survey of 1,757 broadband customers revealed that BT users feel they’re being short changed, ranking both value for money and technical support as their biggest bugbears. BT also achieved average scores for customer service, ease of contact, speed and clarity of bills. In fact, only the ease of setup redeemed BT’s services.
Which?’s survey also shows how dissatisfied the British public are with ISPs in general, ranking the top four UK providers at the bottom-end of the satisfaction scale. Both Sky and TalkTalk came in at 48%, with Virgin Media only slightly ahead with 52%.
BT-owned Plusnet scored highly for everything but speed of service, seeing it rank at number 4 overall. Interestingly, Plusnet received a high rating for customer service and technical support due to its UK-based customer support centres – as opposed to BT’s overseas ones.
Taking the top spot was John Lewis Broadband (78%), followed by Zen Internet (75%) and Utility Warehouse (73%). Here are the full rankings:
Out of all providers, only Zen Internet and Virgin Media were rated highly for broadband speed. Zen offers fibre packages of up to 38Mbits/sec or 76Mbits/sec, with Virgin Media providing from 50Mbits/sec up to an incredible 150Mbits/sec. However, despite these speeds both providers received low ratings for value for money.
According to Tristan Wilkinson of Digital Citizens, the cost of purchasing computers and electronic devices has dropped nearly 99% since the 1980s, yet the cost of connectivity has continually risen. If the UK is trying to expand its coverage to reach 95% of the UK by 2017, the barrier to entry has to drop, and consumers need to feel that they’re getting value for money with the services they use.
Combined, BT and Virgin Media provide up to 75% of Superfast broadband coverage in the UK, and the UK government is pinning its hopes on these two companies to deliver on its vision of a connected country. But when both companies just can’t come close to competing with the likes of John Lewis and Zen internet in terms of service, support and satisfaction, surely it’s time to question if they should be leading the charge?
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