It’s all too tempting to choose a broadband provider purely on price. After all, they are all the same aren’t they?
Wrong! Cheap broadband – and especially free broadband – is bad value when your access to the internet is patchy or disappears completely for days or weeks on end.
Ditching a solid and reliable supplier on the basis of price alone should be considered a risk – even more so if you have to transfer your home phone along with the broadband.
But when cheap – or free - broadband becomes seriously, steam-coming-out-of-the-ears-and-shouting-down-the-phone bad value is when your new ‘provider’ has outsourced the customer and technical ‘support’ staff to some foreign firm. And, when you call and spend 20 minutes on hold (at 10p a minute or more) and the system hangs up on you and you have to start again.
Of course, if you ever do manage to get through the staff of Global Idiot Call Centres Ltd they may very well have absolutely no knowledge of how to fix your problem.
According to a MORI poll around 80% of UK residents said they didn’t like to deal with foreign call centres in regard to broadband problems. My view is that the only reason that the figure was not 100% is because the other 20% were Talktalk customers and therefore could not be contacted for comment.
But just because the call centre is abroad does not guarantee you will receive poor service. Provider Madasafish has a call centre in South Africa and has won awards for the best customer service. And, if we want UK-based service we need to be prepared to pay for it. AOL is UK-based and – while it may be expensive – it does have an excellent customer service reputation.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Ever. And new entrants into the broadband market – like Talktalk – have no experience of dealing with the technical issues involved in setting up large numbers of people onto broadband.
Until the new entrants and purveyors of ‘free’ broadband resolve their huge, huge, ongoing problems our advice is to stay clear of free broadband altogether and stick to the more established names – regardless of price. If anything the best course can be to try and negotiate a better package with your existing provider.
Most switching services will include customer service/satisfaction ratings of some sort, for example uSwitch recently issued a Broadband Customer Satisfaction Report, which can be found on their website.
The report revealed that customer satisfaction with large broadband providers has fallen by 9% in the past six months and customer service was the main reason. TalkTalk and Orange who both offer free broadband services, came out the worst, with one in three customers dissatisfied with the service provided.
According to uSwitch, the best customer service overall was offered by Virgin.net, with 85% of customers praising the internet provider for its good customer service.
Ultimately, the best way to improve your broadband service could be to negotiate with your current supplier. Ring them up and tell them you are considering switching and ask them if they can make your deal cheaper. Do a little research first so that you have a price you want. Probably what will happen is that they will offer to upgrade your connection speed or give you more time online for no more money.
It’s a competitive world out there for broadband suppliers, make the most of it but remember you do still get what you pay for.
By Corin Vestey - Everyinvestor.co.uk for MSN UK January 24 2007
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