TalkTalk woes continue

» Posted by admin on Sep 26, 2011 in Editorial, News | 0 comments

According to telecoms regulator Ofcom, TalkTalk was the most complained about telephone and broadband provider in the first six months of 2011. My experience of assisting clients with their broadband over the years means that this news comes as no surprise. I once wasted almost a day trying to sort out one client’s woes, most of it hanging the phone either for someone to answer or for the person at the other end to come up with the right answer!

TalkTalk’s landline service had 0.8 complaints per 1,000 customers and it’s broadband division had 0.58 complaints per 1,000 customers. This compares to Virgin with 0.15 complaints in both cases.

Things have improved over the years, which is good news but the fact remains that TalkTalk is still the worst when it comes to customer service and despite their cheap prices and comprehensive packages I would recommend you stay away from them. At least if you want good customer service.

Personally, over the years I have found BT and Virgin to provide good customer service. NTL (now part of Virgin) was once troubled by poor customer service, but since they became part of Virgin things have much improved and I use them myself. We use BT at the charity I work for and on the whole they have provided good customer service. My general experience of companies that provide broadband as part of a mobile phone or TV package is not as good and this is reflected in the consumer reports that look at this sort of thing. Generally, I rely very much on Which consumer reports, as well as the technology press (magazines such as .net).

So, despite their sponsorship of X-Factor, TalkTalk doesn’t seem to have the X-Factor themselves when it comes to great customer service and like some of the acts on that show they get 4 thumbs down in my book.