This article was published on December 20, 2011

TalkTalk and Three top Ofcom’s UK telecoms complaints list for 12-months straight


TalkTalk and Three top Ofcom’s UK telecoms complaints list for 12-months straight

Last month, UK communications regulator Ofcom revealed its latest customer satisfaction report, highlighting the best and worst of customer service across the various UK communications industries.

Now Ofcom has published its latest complaints data which – as the name suggests – reveals the most complained about major telecoms providers between July and September 2011.

All telecoms providers with a market share of over 4% are included in the report, and the number of complaints is published as a proportion of each provider’s customer base (per 1,000 customers).

Ofcom has now published data covering a full 12-month period, meaning we can look at the providers’ performance over a longer period of time.

Mobile services

Ofcom’s data indicates that overall, complaints relating to mobile are much lower than for both landline and fixed broadband services.

For the last quarter, it received the most complaints about Three, with 0.15 complaints per 1,000 customers – this was as we reported earlier in the year too. It seems that Three’s complaints have risen slightly over the past 12 months, from 0.09/1,000 in Q4 2010. There has also been a slight increase in complaints against Virgin Mobile over the last quarter.

The least complained about provider over the same period was O2 with 0.02 complaints per 1,000 customers.

Landline services

Ofcom’s data from the previous quarter shows that TalkTalk customers made the most complaints relating to landline telephones, with 0.77 complaints per 1,000 customers. And it seems these have largely been driven by billing and customer service issues.

Conversely, for the fourth quarter in a row, Virgin Media is the the least complained about provider, with 0.19 complaints per 1,000 customers.

However, it’s probably worth noting that TalkTalk’s complaints have steadily come down over the past year, from 1.16/1,000 in Q4 2010. Whilst Virgin’s have gone up marginally over the same period from 0.12/1,000.

Fixed broadband services

In terms of broadband Internet, the latest Ofcom data shows that, as with the landline category, TalkTalk generated the most complaints, with 0.55/1000 customers. These were driven significantly by line-faults and other service issues.

The least complained about providers over the same period were Sky and Virgin Media, with 0.19/1,000 customers.

You can view the full report for yourself here: Ofcom Telecoms Complaints: Q3 (July to September) 2011

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