UK Broadband Users Dissatisfied with their ISPs Customer Support

18/05/2009 (www.ISPreview.co.uk, UK, London) – The results from 450 respondents to ISPreview.co.uk’s latest survey reveals that just 36.6% thought their ISPs telephone based customer support was GOOD (28% POOR, 17% AVERAGE), which dropped to just 27.5% for email support (24% POOR, 17% AVERAGE). Respondents sighted “unhelpful replies” (45.7%) as being the most frustrating aspect of their ISPs support, while fewer felt that slow or no replies at all (29.7%) or costly voice calls (24.4%) were the biggest irritations.

“There was a time when ISPs put just as much effort into their customer support quality as they did with the Internet connection service itself,” commented Mark Jackson, ISPreview.co.uk’s Editor, on the survey results. “These days the culture of outsourcing vital support departments overseas, where staff often appear to do little more than read from a script of possible solutions, appears to have triggered a dumbing down.”

It’s hard to see how ISPs can address this problem in the current climate, especially with margins among the big boys being so tight. “We don’t foresee a reversal of the outsourcing trend on the horizon, though it would take a lot more than that to improve the situation,” added Jackson. “If you want a good example of how support can be done right then just look towards the smallest ISPs, such as Zen Internet, AAISP or IDNet etc. Most of their staff actually seem to understand I.T. and put a lot more effort into examining the problem, instead of just blaming it on the user. Mind you, they’ll cost a bit extra.”

Unfortunately it is the nature of customer support that you’ll only really find out whether or not it’s any good when you need it the most. The best advice is to hunt around and find out what existing users have to say about a service before joining. Likewise, don’t be afraid to switch ISP if your existing provider fails to deal with any problems you may have.

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Media publications are free to use any aspect of the above article provided due link credit is given back to http://www.ISPreview.co.uk .
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Kind Regards

Mr Mark Jackson
(Editor-In-Chief)
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http://www.ispreview.co.uk
http://www.host-review.co.uk
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ISPreview.co.uk is a popular UK consumer focused Internet Service
Provider information site that reports on the daily happenings in the
industry, allows visitor to review their provider and freely helps
customers to resolve problems. The website has been running since 1999
and also offers a simple listings and price comparison system, among
other features. ISPreview.co.uk is complimented by a sister site,
Host-Review.co.uk, which covers UK website hosting providers.

For further press information please contact:
Email: press {at} ispreview.co(.)uk / send.news {at} host-review.co(.)uk
Website: http://www.ispreview.co.uk / http://www.host-review.co.uk