BigPond not up to scratch?
The survey, conducted by Whirlpool, polled 13,000 Australian Internet users to get a picture of the current broadband marketplace, including their views on ISP customer service and reliability.
A sign that the overall market has improved is that 72.5 percent of respondents felt they are getting better value than a year ago. However, while some ISPs seemed to perform exceptionally well, others -- by and large Telstra -- received dismal results.
Customer service stands out as the area where Telstra falls most behind, with 43.8 percent of BigPond users in the survey saying it is 'average' and 22.7 percent describing it 'awful'. The only ISP to score lower was TPG -- 70 percent of respondents said its customer service fell under these categories.
In contrast, 98.5 percent of WestNet and 95.9 percent of Internode respondents gave their ISPs a customer service rating of 'good' or 'excellent'.
With regard to reliability, Internode and WestNet again ranked the highest while BigPond hit the bottom of the pile.
With all these very sub-par ratings it's no wonder that when asked if respondents would recommend their ISP to others, BigPond scored the lowest.
Not surprisingly, a spokesperson for Telstra criticised the survey, saying it was unrepresentative of the Australian Internet population.
Arguably, this is true. In the demographics section of the questionnaire, almost 80 percent of respondents described themselves as power users or technical gurus.
But aren't these people also Telstra's target market? Even if they are not, should the average user be content with an Internet service that the tech savvy community of Australia has deemed to be of very low standard in terms of customer service and reliability?
What do you think? Talk back to me below!
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