O2 has best customer satisfaction
O2 has topped a poll for customer satisfaction rates commissioned by Ofcom. The research involved interviews of thousands of customers between July and September this year and asked customers to rate their satisfaction regarding their interaction with customer services.
The research concerns six mobile network in the UK: O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Virgin Mobile, and 3. The networks were rated according to various criteria such as how quickly the issues were dealt with, the quality of the service and the competence and attitude of the customer services representative they spoke to.
O2 topped the poll with a total satisfaction rating of 76%. Following behind were three and T-Mobile who were tied in third place with 67% satisfaction will stop next was orange with 65% followed by virgin Mobile with 64%. The worst rated mobile network for 2012 according to of column is Vodafone. They had a satisfaction rating of only 61% and 18% of customers claim they were dissatisfied after their called the customer services.
Not only did O2 top the poll by some margin but they also had by far the lowest dissatisfaction levels. Only 8% of O2 customers reported being dissatisfied compared to the lowest from any other network at 14% of Three Mobile and Orange customers. O2 also excelled in areas such as the speed it takes to resolve issues and for being easy to contact. There were also commended by Ofcom for frequently offering compensation or goodwill gestures.
The latest findings are very surprising as they come at the end of a terrible year for O2. The company has been plagued by technical issues and has suffered two lengthy outages across its entire network. In fact, it’s been hard to find a good word said about O2 customer services in 2012. User forums have been awash with complaints and unresolved issues and the network has been roundly criticised for the poor way with which it has dealt with the outages.
What’s even more baffling is the claim that they are good at offering compensation when it is due. One of the strongest criticisms of O2‘s handling of its technical problems was the way to dodge the issue of compensation and then gave an incredibly meagre amount for the inconvenience that customers suffered. They didn’t even offer any compensation for the second outage this year. The customer satisfaction surveys also don’t have any mention of satisfaction with the service itself which could also be a problem for O2 as they are renowned for having by far the worst 3G coverage in the country.
Still, O2 will be very pleased with the results which showed head and shoulders above the other networks. It remains to be seen whether this customer satisfaction will translate into increased loyalty to the brand. Vodafone and of course will be very disappointed and it it will be interesting to see over the coming months what they can do to turn these results around.
Another thing learned from the research is that mobile customers are becoming ever more dissatisfied with their networks. The average percentage of dissatisfied customers has risen from 9% to 14% since 2009 – this is a 50% increase. Clearly mobile networks will have to work harder to keep customers happy.
Which mobile network are you with? Have you ever had to contact them about an issue and, if so, how do you rate the customer service you get from them? Finally, does your experience of various mobile networks equates to the findings of the Ofcom survey?
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