Latest phone, broadband and pay TV complaints revealed
27 Jun 2014 04:58 PM
Ofcom published the volumes of complaints made
against the major providers of telecoms and pay TV services between January and
March 2014.
This is Ofcom’s thirteenth
quarterly report, which aims to provide useful information for consumers
when choosing a provider and incentivise operators to improve their
performance.
The
total volume of telecoms and pay TV complaints made to Ofcom increased slightly
in Q1 2014. Complaints were marginally higher quarter on quarter across
landline, broadband and mobile pay-as-you-go services. Complaints in the mobile
pay-monthly and pay TV sectors remained at the same level as in Q4
2013.
The
report now presents pay-monthly mobile phone complaints against Orange,
T-Mobile and 4GEE in a combined form – as ‘EE’. This reflects
that EE has started to consolidate the three brands following the merger of
Orange and T-Mobile.
Since Q4 2014, as part of its brand consolidation, EE
has integrated its online and high street presence and unified the consumer
experience in terms of network access and customer service
operations.
Claudio Pollack, Director of Ofcom’s Consumer
Group said: “Publishing complaints data is a key part of our work to
provide useful comparative information for consumers, and drive improvements in
quality of service across the communications sector.
“The report highlights the performance of
providers relative to each other. This is valuable information that consumers
may wish to consider alongside other factors such as price and availability,
for example, when choosing a provider”.
Landline telephone
services
In
the landline telephone market, TalkTalk generated the most complaints during
the first quarter of 2014, with 0.28 complaints per 1,000
customers.
Its
complaints volumes increased slightly over the quarter and remained above the
industry average. Complaints mainly related to service faults, complaints
handling and billing.
BT
also generated complaints above the industry average for its landline service
at 0.23 per 1,000 customers in Q4 2013.
Virgin Media had the fewest number of complaints at 0.07
per 1,000 landline customers, while Sky attracted 0.10 per 1,000 customers
– both below industry average.
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