Brits are more satisfied with services provided by smaller broadband providers as compared to bigger ones, an annual customer satisfaction survey has found.
BT, Sky and TalkTalk received customer satisfaction score of under 50 per cent in the Which? poll, while small providers including John Lewis Broadband, Plusnet, Utility Warehouse and Zen Internet scored more than 70 per cent.
John Lewis topped the list with 76 per cent satisfaction score, while BT remained on the last spot with 45 per cent score, below Sky and TalkTalk, both on 48.
In terms of broadband speed, most of the internet service providers in the survey received scores of three stars out of five. TalkTalk customers were least happy, giving their provider just two stars for speed. Virgin Media and Zen Internet were the only two to score four stars.
Which? has also called out advertising watchdogs, the Committee of Advertising Practice and the Broadcasting Committee of Advertising Practice, to tighten rules to ensure that broadband speeds advertised by providers more closely match speeds received by most of the customers.
Currently, broadband providers’ advertised speeds need to apply to only 10 per cent of customers to be met by advertising guidelines.
Richard Lloyd, Executive Director at Which?, said “Smaller suppliers are leaving larger rivals in their wake when it comes to the service they provide so we need to see the big players up their game.
“Ofcom is also currently reviewing this market and we now need it to identify how it plans to ensure broadband customers get a better deal.
“We’ve told the advertising watchdogs that companies need to be much clearer with their customers about the speeds they can expect. However, three months on, we’re still waiting for them to announce how they’ll ensure adverts only show the speeds most customers actually receive.”
Here’s the list of broadband providers in order of customer score –
- John Lewis Broadband -76%
- Zen Internet- 75%
- Utility Warehouse -73%
- Plusnet- 72%
- Post Office -61%
- Tesco Broadband -56%
- Virgin Media -52%
- EE Broadband -50%
- Sky -48%
- TalkTalk- 48%
- BT- 45%
Customer satisfaction scores are based on Which?’s survey of 1,757 broadband users in December and January.
