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In a recent Which? survey reporting on the quality of customer service amongst 100 of the UK’s leading brands, several of our industry’s major players didn’t fair too well with BT, TalkTalk and Vodafone dominating the bottom of the league table along with a number of energy providers.

ISPReview.co.uk: Which Name BT, TalkTalk and Vodafone Worst for Customer Service

The biggest gripes reported were non-UK based call centres, automated phone systems and being passed around lots of different people and departments. In comparison, friendly and helpful staff, good product/service knowledge and speed of service were listed as ways to ensure customer satisfaction. This comes in the same week that EE announced promises to improve their own broadband customer service after ongoing complaints and a hefty fine from Ofcom earlier this year. “I’m not going to offer any excuses because broadband customer service has simply not been good enough. I promise all of our customers that service is our top priority," promised EE customer service boss Francoise Clemes.

The Register: EE: Yes, our broadband service is a total clusterf**k – but we promise to improve

Big isn’t better! So, it looks like bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better, especially when it comes to customer service. That’s something most of the industry have known for quite some time and it seems even the most price sensitive of consumers are starting to take note that you really do get what you pay for. Whilst larger providers may be able to compete more effectively on price due to their high volumes, they clearly don’t measure up in terms of customer service - good news for our channel! With the press highlighting the major players’ service quality issues quite vocally over the last few weeks maybe now is a good time to remind your customers of the superior levels of service they receive in comparison and really use this differentiator to your advantage. When asked why they should go with you over BT et al remind them of the recent reports and the potential pain they could experience if something goes wrong compared to your more dedicated, knowledgeable and UK based operations. We’ve been arguing for quite some time now that broadband isn’t all about price and when an issue occurs many consumers often come to this realisation, unfortunately a little too late. Have your say! Have you experienced new business from disgruntled ex-customers of the larger players? Do you already use your superior levels of customer service as a key differentiator or is this something you are thinking of adopting? Do you think more needs to be done to educate consumers to this potential issue? Let us know your thoughts by leaving us a comment below. Related articles