Broadband Guide

Sky is top of the ISP pops

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Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

Sky Broadband has come top in all the satisfaction categories of a new broadband satisfaction survey (16-09-08).

The BroadbandChoices.co.uk survey to find the UK’s favourite ISP is conducted every six months in conjunction with Point Topic, asking households to rate their provider in the following categories:

• Quality & stability of your home internet service
• The clarity of pricing & billing
• Good value for money
• Download time of files & web pages
• After sales support
• Speed of service activation

Sky Broadband (www.Sky.com) was voted the best overall provider, coming top in all six categories; TalkTalk (www.TalkTalk.co.uk) came second, while cable provider Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com) took third place.

However, Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, said that the statistics showed that the satisfaction gap had widened. “An area that does concern me is the increase in the satisfaction gap,” he said. “ISPs should be competing fiercely not only to acquire customers but also to keep them happy and that means a better service across the board. Over the past six months our survey shows that the gap between the top ISP and bottom ISP in each category is getting bigger - so whilst some companies are clearly improving their satisfaction ratings, others are falling further behind.

“The low scores that we see for after sales support, when compared to other categories, demonstrates for the second time running that customers feel neglected after they have signed on the dotted line,” he added.

He was also surprised to see that despite the ongoing credit crunch, customers didn’t feel they were getting less value for money, and noted that the difference in the “value for money” category was less than one per cent between February and July 2008.

“However, households can still save money,” he explained. “ISPs announce new deals all the time and any household that hasn’t looked at what else is on offer for a year or more may find that they can make significant savings on their annual cost of broadband if they switch broadband to another provider. Our research has shown that users can save an average of £150 per year if they switch to a new package or provider through our website.”

Phillips also gave a special mention to O2 (www.O2.co.uk) which, although its sample size was too small to be included in the survey, scored an impressive 94 per cent for fairly/very satisfied in “overall quality and reliability”, and 79 per cent for “after sales support” - 12 per cent more than Sky Broadband.

Related article - Cheap broadband.

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