O2, Virgin Media And Sky Top Ofcom Customer Service Charts

Satisfaction at the level of customer service provided by telecoms and TV operators increased between July and September this year, with the mobile and Pay TV sectors recording the largest increase.

Ofcom interviewed 6,000 consumers who had contacted their provider during the three month period and asked them a number of questions about the service they received, including the speed at which issues were dealt with, the standard of advice given and the attitude and ability of the advisor.

Mobile and Landline

O2’s reputation for good customer service is enhanced by the fact that 82 percent of users were happy with its customer service, an increase from 76 percent in 2012, while Vodafone increased its score from 61 percent to 77 percent, bringing the industry average up from 67 percent to 75 percent.

Three improved its score to 74 percent, while T-Mobile and Virgin Media both recorded 71 percent, but all three remain below average. Orange’s score of 67 percent was the worst in the industry, with Ofcom claiming that customers struggled to find the correct contact information, and when they did, responses were too slow and the usefulness of the information unsatisfactory.

Virgin Media was the highest scoring landline operator with 74 percent, a ten percent increase from last year, attributed to the logging of query details to avoid customers having to repeat themselves and the courtesy and politeness of advisors. It was also the only company to score higher than average on getting through the right person.

Rival Sky’s score actually decreased from 70 percent to 69 percent, but this was still higher than TalkTalk’s 66 percent. BT’s score remained static at 63 percent, contributing to a sector average of 66 percent satisfaction.

Broadband and TV

Sky fared better in broadband, securing an eight point increase to 71 percent, the same as Virgin Media, which posted 61 percent last year. Both companies’ customers were pleased at the knowledge of advisors and the offer of compensation of goodwill payments.

In contrast, BT’s unwillingness to offer compensation contributed to a static score of 63 percent, while TalkTalk’s 62 percent reflected its unwillingness to log enquiries.

Eighty percent of Sky customers were satisfied with their customer service experience, up from 17 percent last year, while Virgin Media increased its score by 11 percent to 77 percent. Ofcom has no details about BT’s 2012 score, but its 59 percent satisfaction rate was caused by a lack of information, the slowness at which queries were resolved and the difficulty of finding the right person to speak to.

Ofcom mission

Ofcom started publishing customer service research In 2009 and said the figures are significantly higher than when it first started collecting the information.

“We expect communications providers to deliver high standards of service to their customers. In the event things go wrong, it is important that consumers have peace of mind that their questions or issues will be dealt with in a timely and efficient way by their provider,” explained Claudio Pollack, Ofcom’s Consumer Group Director.

“Our research data gives consumers valuable information about standards of customer service, which can help them when choosing a new service or provider. We also hope this research acts as an incentive to providers to continue to work to improve their customer service and we will be discussing our findings with them.”

Earlier this week, the regulator published how many complaints it had received about each telecom operator, with BT suffering from issues relating to the launch of its BT Sport family of channels last August.

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