The broadband market is saturated with different companies offering many different broadband services, countless vying to be the cheapest provider which we regularly see through special promotions aimed at attracting users based on price alone. Speed is another area which attracts a lot of attention and speed wars are taking place with BT and Virgin the key proponents striving to offer the fastest possible broadband service. Customer service might lack some of the glamour associated with being the fastest but it is arguably the most important aspect which customers will see, and can breed a very negative experience when this is bad. Our annual customer service awards aim to recognise customer service in the broadband industry, and commend those who excel at this.
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We have examined nearly 200,000 ratings recorded by our users from the beginning of 2010 to the end of the year and have seen a clear indication of the quality that some ISPs show in customer service.
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Winner: BE Unlimited (large ISP) AAISP (niche ISP) |
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Runner-up: O2 Broadband (large ISP) Zen Internet (niche ISP) |
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2nd Runner-up: PlusNet (large ISP) IDNet (niche ISP) |
The only change at the top of the tables this year is that BE have overtaken their sister company O2 with a 9% improvement in customer service as rated by our users when compared with last year. This boosts BE to be the winner of the large ISP category, taking gold, O2 take silver and Plusnet bronze.
| ISP | Customer Service | Reliability | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BE Unlimited | 80% | (4,975) | 78% | (5,518) |
| O2 Broadband | 73% | (12,531) | 69% | (13,805) |
| PlusNet | 64% | (8,348) | 64% | (9,205) |
| Sky Broadband | 51% | (17,256) | 58% | (18,638) |
| Virgin Media | 47% | (29,309) | 56% | (31,620) |
| BT Broadband | 45% | (32,368) | 54% | (35,439) |
| TalkTalk Business | 44% | (5,526) | 54% | (6,480) |
| TalkTalk | 39% | (35,307) | 47% | (38,483) |
| Orange | 37% | (8,155) | 46% | (8,891) |
"We're incredibly pleased to have been ranked as the best large ISP in the 2011 awards because they are based on thousands of independent customer ratings. Everyone at BE works hard to make our customer service the best it can be to match our unlimited, unthrottled service so there are lots of proud smiles around the building today."
Chris Stening, (MD) BE Broadband
There have been no changes to the top three in the niche ISP category with AAISP taking gold, Zen silver and IDNet bronze. It is pleasing to see that these providers can consistently perform, with all three maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction of over 85% over several years.
| ISP | Customer Service | Reliability | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAISP | 92% | (1,061) | 88% | (1,068) |
| Zen Internet | 87% | (4,072) | 85% | (4,367) |
| IDNet | 86% | (1,533) | 83% | (1,609) |
| Eclipse | 69% | (1,993) | 70% | (2,207) |
| Entanet | 66% | (1,110) | 69% | (1,229) |
| Demon | 44% | (2,463) | 53% | (2,843) |
"We are pleased to have won this award a second year running, especially as we have set ourselves such high quality standards for our network this year."
Adrian Kennard, (Director) AAISP
You can take part in our customer service awards by rating your provider, each month. To do so, you either need to login on our website and use the rate your broadband provider page or you can first perform a speed test and then provide ratings after this has completed.
staff member)
over 2 years ago
Be getting an award as a large ISP ? Some mistake, surely.
Zen and Talk Talk business achieved similar number of responses and yet are classified as "niche". If anyone's "niche" it has to be Be - the fastest ISP you've never heard of.