TalkTalk Complaints Make It Bottom Of The Satisfaction League

TalkTalk has once again been branded Britain’s worst telecoms provider in watchdog Ofcom’s quarterly report on customer satisfaction. however, the operator takes comfort that TalkTalk complaints had gone down substantially since Ofcom’s last report.

The report brings together complaints about broadband, landline and mobile telephone services, which Ofcom received  between January and March 2012. It also includes information on pay TV for the very first time.

TalkTalk was worst for both landline and broadband connections, while Three was the most complained-about company in the mobile market. Sky customers experienced fewer problems with their broadband than anyone else, and O2 has outdone the competition as far as mobile phone networks are concerned.

History repeats itself

Ofcom has been collecting complains data over the last 18 months, allowing customers to see progress, or the lack of it, over a period of time. The watchdog publishes this information in the hope that it will serve as a useful benchmark for consumers, as well as an incentive for providers to uptheir game.

Complaints to Ofcom are a serious business, as they are usually made when the provider of the service has failed to resolve the issue.

In the broadband market, TalkTalk remains the most moaned about provider for the sixth consecutive quarter. It received 0.56 complaints per 1,000 customers, translating into 280 unsatisfied users for its 5 million customer base.

According to the same data, Sky provided the best service, with 0.15 complaints per 1,000 customers, closely followed by Virgin Media. Sky has constantly improved its satisfaction rating since April 2011, when the first report was published.

In the landline market, it was once again the TalkTalk Group which received most complaints. Here, too, the provider has been consistently bottom of the list since Ofcom first started releasing this information. The least complained about provider in the same period was Virgin Media.

However, TalkTalk seems unfazed by abysmal ratings, and sees a silver lining in this huge cloud of customer dissatisfaction. “We are pleased that Ofcom’s data shows that complaints are 36 percent down for telephone and 31 percent down for broadband compared with the same period last year,” a spokesperson for the company told TechWeekEurope.

“We have been working hard to deliver improvements that give our customers a better experience, and as a result we’re receiving 31 percent fewer calls to our customer contact centres. For those that call, more than three quarters of issues are resolved the first time.”

“We do recognise there is still work to do and we are continually pushing through improvements. Technical faults are fixed 20 per cent more quickly, more support is being offered when customers move house, and our online customer support systems, which now account for 70 percent of customer contacts, are being further enhanced.”

Among the mobile service operators, 3 UK received the most complaints, a trend which has been repeated over and over. Meanwhile, O2 has maintained its reputation as the easiest network to deal with, by receiving just one complaint per 100,000 customers.

In the pay TV market, BT Vision has prompted at least three times more complaints than Virgin or Sky – 0.27 per every 1,000 customers.

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