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First customers free of TalkTalk contracts
(11-10-07) - The first customers who signed up to TalkTalk’s “free broadband” packages 18 months ago are free of their contracts today.
With hundreds of thousands of customers signing up in the first eight weeks, TalkTalk (www.TalkTalk.co.uk) failed to cope with demand and left many customers waiting weeks - some months - to be connected to the service.
But having invested a whopping £15 million improving its poor customer service has the company done enough to keep its customers?
Yesterday Carphone Warehouse, which owns TalkTalk and provider AOL (www.AOL.co.uk) announced a slowdown in new broadband connections over the past quarter, dropping from 126,000 new additions between April and the end of June, to only 89,000 over the last three months - far less than expected.
As hundreds of thousands of TalkTalk customers will be freed from their contractual duties over the coming weeks, Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, advised customers at the end of any contract to shop around for a better package.
“It is easy to dismiss TalkTalk after their long-running, well documented problems, but their free broadband offer revolutionised the telecoms market, paving the way for a host of money saving bundles - and they do still offer very cheap home phone and broadband packages,” he said.
Customers need to take their needs into consideration when looking for a new package, said Mr Phillips, and predicted that with the digital TV switchover looming, television, broadband and home phone bundles would be the next big thing.
While people shouldn’t have to choose between price and service, he concluded, “they need to accept that if they’re getting broadband as a ‘free’ add-on, it’s unlikely to be of the highest quality” and should bear this in mind when taking any such package.
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