By Jo Best, 13 December 2005 16:25
NEWS
The $6bn union between NTL and Telewest could prove opposites attract. According to research into customer satisfaction among ISPs' customers, Telewest is the most loved service provider and NTL is the most loathed.
Customer satisfaction rankings from research company JD Power found Telewest ranked top of the providers, AOL second, followed by Wanadoo. NTL is at the bottom of the list, just behind BT. In all, results for seven major providers were revealed.
While some managed to score highly in certain areas of customer satisfaction, such as billing, image or special offers, both NTL's and Telewest's scores were far more consistent.
Ian Giles, MD of research projects at JD Power, noted: "Telewest does very well in most categories, NTL, which came last, does not do very well in most things."
Of the seven factors JD Power used to rate the ISPs, reliability was found to be the most important, followed by technical support. The cost of the service is the fifth most important factor in determining customer satisfaction.
The report found that of those who had contacted their ISPs' support desk in the past 12 months, 40 per cent had rung with a complaint.
Giles told silicon.com that broadband customers, compared to other industries such as electricity, rate customer service particularly highly in their choice of providers.
He said: "[ISPs] really need to get that right. People who ring up their ISP want to be served quickly, they want to get through to a person – they don't like automated systems – and they want to get their problem resolved by the first person they speak to."
Comments
There are 21 comments. Join the discussion
1. David Clark-Bell
I believe Telewest is good for consumers because it’s fast and “new” connection (that doesn’t reply on BT lines. But for businesses watch out! Telewest lines have several disadvantages: 1: no real fixed IP address (all you get is a l0ong lease off their DHCP system, 2: no reverse lookup on that IP address so your email system can respond to reverse lookups from AOL and other anti-spam systems, 3: All of Telewest network IP’s are classified as spamming open relays. The blacklists produced by the Spam Prevention Early Warning System (Spews) are used by many organisations as a way to filter e-mail. This started back in May of 2005 and by December Telewest does not have a fix nor will the “block” their customer’s’ offending ports (port 25). Nildram did notify it’s customers that it would block port 25 and you had the change to register your use of the port and they have dealt with the problem three years ago. But Telewest is not solving their problems. So businesses beware.
2. Roger Huffadine
Wrong Giles - Regardless of who we call everyone wants to be served quickly, they want to get through to a person – they don't like automated systems – and they want to get their problem resolved by the first person they speak to.
Its just that the good ISPs actually deliver that dream.
3. chris eldred
I have NTL, and the broadband support is laughable, they dont do anything but read a script, so twenty minutes of switching things on and off they conclude, "yes, we have disconnected you"
They even suggest on their tedious call waiting messages that if you have a broadband probelem you visit their web site for on line help.
Its a poor quality offering for the money, roll on telewest!!
4. micseng
As an NTL customer I can confirm the reports findings. I have never had a complaint properly answered. Email problems are always blamed on my setup, I never change anything. I just have to wait until they cure the mess at their end. Technical knowledge in the call centre is non existent. Cable TV has recurrent blank periods lasting a few seconds. Murphy's law means that those few seconds are the important parts.
5. Sarah
I was not surprised by these findings at all. NTL have always been bad at customer service and I was so dissapointed about the NTL/Telewest union as I was hoping someone would buy NTL.
I gave up using NTL 7 years ago because of the appalling customer service. It would seem like little has changed since then .....
6. anonymous
"NT Hell" customers clearly haven't suffered the nightmare that is Legend Communications Plc.
They should count themselves lucky for small mercies
7. John Brooks
'Telewest does very well in most categories' - was that before or after the Blueyonder inbound email system went AWOL for a week? (last week, I understand, from a long-suffering user!)
8. anonymous
This is the same for any ISP, I found P***x a problem although other people rave about how good they are.
I am supprised that Tis***i was not the worst. Everything i have heared or experienced with them has been bad.
Please note the *'s are to protect the idetity of useless isp's, work it out for yourselves.
9. Yomi Bazuaye
I have used NTL for Broadband, Cable TV and Telephone services for the past 2 years. Throughout this period all three services have been consistently un-reliable. Web email is painfully slow. Support during outages is at best frustrating and at worst offensive. However, they (NTL) are very good at offering to sell me the services I have already subscribed to. I have a constant stream of leaflets, letters and salesmen on my doorstep. I can only dream of how different things could be if NTL spent less money on sales and more money on providing services to their customers.
The price I pay is just about competitive bare
10. Huw Owens
I know I'm in the minority, but:
I have the full NTL package - phone, TV & broadband - and haven't had to call technical support in years.
On the one ocasion I had to call, an engineer was at my house within the hour, and fixed the problem within 30 minutes.
I guess I have good Karma...
11. Simon Walker
What worries me about all this is knowing just how bad telewest are. I gave up on them some time ago, yet still have friends whose systems I am regularly called over to support only to find that they are on Telewest and it hates anything that isn't a basic set-up.
Calling from help from them is like having your teeth pulled - half an hour of listen to really bad Muzak, then the pain of finding out the person at the other end knows nothing and is following a script!
I'll stick to Nildram thanks, an excellent service- good spped, up time and no hastle with real technical help
12. Ron Murray
I have Telewest and on the whole they are very good. With Tech Support it is the luck of the draw who you get on the other end of the phone.
When I rang them this year with a constant "Cannot find server or DNS Error" The conversation went something like this:-
Me - "If I try and open five Browser windows I get the "Cannot find server or DNS Error" message"
Tech Support - "You should only be opening one window"
Me - "What - that's why it's called Windows"
Tech Support - "Why would you want to open more than one"
Me - "It's called Windows so you can have as many as you want open. I have had about fifty windows open when these pop-ups used to take hold"
Tech Support - "Have you tried a reboot?"
Me - " I will give it a reboot"
I just left the PC alone and the problem cleared around three hours later. I suspected Engineering work as I am sure Broadband bandwidth suffers when they carry out TV channel carrier maintenance.
13. Not Impressed
With NTL, it all depends where you are geographically situated. If you are unlucky enough to be near a Local Authority Estate (I don't mean to pick on most tenants), you could end up being cut off by a mistake. NTL cut subscribers off within 10 days of the billing date. They make mistakes, and have cut me off twice. Their phone Musak will drive you to despair, and their phone option system is horrendous. It's all cheap as chips....no one is there waiting for your call
The service is constantly going down, and they damage the pavements where ever they are laying trunking, and tarmac repairs are poor.
The Service is dirt cheap and not very chearful.
I ended up converting the line to fax only. Also, they sell your name to every wretched cold caller in the Region.
Best to avoid NTL.
I like BT and Virgin
14. Malcolm Johnson
NTL insist on a credit card payment when you sign up. They treat this as a "continuous authority" which, unlike Direct Debit, cannot be cancelled by simply telling your bank or credit card provider.
When you cancel, they keep taking your money. If you complain to the credit card provider, they will reclaim it as a dispute but NTL simply charge it again.
The only recourse is to cancel your card!
15. anonymous
Having been a broadband customer of both, I can vouch for these ratings. Initially TW weren't too good but they settled down and improved vastly. NTL have been around long enough to be as good as TW but when I had to ring their so called Help line, useless springs to mind. Every time I rang up, there systems were down so they couldn't do anything. They would ask for my phone number so that they could ring me back but never, ever, did. In the end we forced their Technical Dept to solve our problem even though they aren't supposed to, it only involved a configuration record at their end for goodness sake.
16. anonymous
NTL - Not Terribly Liked
They really are the pits at support and the service is quite hit & miss.
Hardly surprising that BT came in the bottom end, they lost the plot years ago but if you need telco services they have you by the balls.
17. anonymous
From a retired "Network Specialist";
"It's called Windows so you can have as many as you want open. I have had about fifty windows open when these pop-ups used to take hold"
It's called Windows because your work areas in the various applications open in...ummm.... windows. What you're referring to is called Internet Explorer and as for pop-ups... has the "Network Specialist" never heard of spyware, adware or malware?
My sympathy is with the tech support agent that had to deal with this so-called specialist.
Must be an ex-NTL employee.
18. James Button
As a long term Telewest customer - yes they have some problems:
Some support personnel are little help unless you want to lose all your email etc.
Some are excellent.
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And I seem to get the quoted bandwidth most of the time unlike many of my contacts who are on connections via BT exchanges.
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For me, the most annoying aspect of Telewest's customer facing support process is the frequency with which the freephone number and web page that should give the current status of their systems does NOT get appropriately updated.
That together with the apparently poor consistency of their news-server updating system are the main annoyances with their ISP/broadband service provision.
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Telewest - if anyone from that organisation is paying attention -
Please tell your engineering/support services to tell your customers what is happening, and properly update your status information facilities -
That's not daily, but at least hourly, review and refresh.
And when you are doing things like changing email processing so users need to respecify the POP3 connections -Tell us on the status page
Save us, and yourselves the expense and annoyance of having to wait to talk to your support personnel.
19. anonymous
NTL! Don't even think of buying into their contract. Every problem I have reported has been blamed on BT and 'we can do nothing'. Moving house, despite all the notice they asked for, meant a 5 week period without service (but fully charged for under their 'virtual' contract - you never have an actual copy to hand).
I can't wait to leave NTHell world!
20. Rob
I must be lucky or in the right region as I have nothing but praise for my NTL Broadband service. Tech support have always been good, even when I phoned up to get an exact answer as to what the depot fire had done to the service rather than the joe bloggs answer being published.
Never had a problem with them stealing of my CC, the Direct Debit system works fine.
Service status has always been uptodate and they have made me even more happy with the recent upgrade to 10Mbs and a minor reduction on my monthly bill starting in January.
From what I can gather alot of problems occur when you have all 3 services from NTL, I only use them for Broadband.
21. scott wilson
NTL are very poor on servcie and installs, they will qoute you price then hike it up using the good old fashioned subjetc to survey.
sigh.....