In its ongoing effort to help customers find the best service, Ofcom has unveiled its most recent data on complaints lodged against major broadband and pay-TV providers in the UK. Covering the period from October to December of 2023, it reveals notable trends and insights into customer satisfaction levels across various services.
Complaint levels remained relatively steady compared to the previous quarter in 2023. However, there were changes within specific sectors: complaints regarding fixed broadband and pay-TV services experienced declines.
Discover which providers had the highest complaints and which currently offer the smoothest service experience.
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Most complained about broadband providers
According to the latest figures released by Ofcom, Virgin Media once again claims the top spot as the most complained-about broadband provider.
Ofcom reports that between October and December 2023, Virgin Media received the highest number of complaints, largely attributed to customer dissatisfaction with the handling of their issues and connection faults. Despite this, there has been a notable decrease in complaints across all these areas compared to the previous quarter.
Virgin Media registered 20 complaints per 100,000 broadband customers from October to December, a great improvement from the 32 per 100,000 recorded in the previous quarter. However, it still far surpassed the industry average of 12 complaints.
While Virgin Media slightly outpaced NOW Broadband, which received 18 complaints per 100,000 customers, it trailed behind Sky, which garnered the fewest complaints at five per 100,000 customers, with Plusnet and EE receiving nine each.
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A significant portion of the complaints directed towards Virgin Media, approximately 43%, stemmed from issues related to complaints handling, exceeding the industry average of 32%. Additionally, only 22% of its complaints pertained to faults, service, and provisioning, falling below the industry average of 37%.
In terms of landline services, Virgin Media recorded 13 complaints per 100,000 customers, narrowly edging out Shell Energy and NOW Broadband, which had 12 and 10 complaints, respectively. This marks a decrease from the previous quarter when 19 complaints per 100,000 customers were lodged against Virgin Media.
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Most complained about pay-TV companies
Virgin Media recorded 20 complaints per 100,000 customers for its pay-TV services, a figure more than double that of BT, which received seven complaints, and significantly higher than Sky and TalkTalk, which received only two complaints and one complaint per 100,000, respectively.
Once again, complaints handling emerged as the predominant issue troubling customers across the board, regardless of provider.
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Ernest Doku, telecoms expert at Uswitch.com, responds to Ofcom’s latest telecoms and pay TV complaints data:
“It’s good news to see the overall volume of complaints for fixed broadband and landline providers has decreased, following a noted increase in complaints of Q3 of 2023. This is a positive sign that providers are listening to customer feedback and enhancing their processes and offerings accordingly.
“Amongst the individual providers, it’s encouraging that Sky has retained its crown as the best-performing broadband provider, receiving the fewest complaints - the latest string to its bow, with strong performance in the mobiles market too.
“It’s disappointing to see Virgin Media remain at the bottom of the tables for a consecutive period. The data shows that not only are Virgin Media’s broadband customers experiencing more faults than expected, but 43% are unhappy with complaints handling. While people are willing to accept that faults can happen at times, consumers could be tempted away to other providers offering a more supportive response than Virgin Media.
“With billing, pricing and charging making up one fifth (19%) of broadband complaints, it’s no surprise that Ofcom is taking action in this area with a proposed ban on inflation-linked percentage price increases, in favour of a clearer ‘pounds and pence’ format. The regulator likely hopes that this change would bring about greater transparency for consumer billing.”
In response to Ofcom's findings, a Virgin Media O2 spokesperson said: “We’re committed to providing an excellent service to our customers, and while overall these complaints represent a very small proportion of our customer base, we acknowledge there is a need for improvement, which is underway, and we’re focused on getting this right.
“We are investing heavily and making changes across our business to deliver tangible improvements – for example through multi-skilling our teams and rolling out new IT platforms that will make it easier for customers to get support when they need it, and empowering our people to resolve any issues quickly and effectively first time.”
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