Updated: Oftel publishes user complaints data

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By Alun Williams

Posted on 20 Jun 2003 at 12:41

BTopenworld, Npower and Cellular Operations top the complaints leagues for ISP, fixed-line and mobile markets. These are the findings from Oftel as it publishes its latest data on user complaints.

Oftel's idea is for naming and shaming. 'We received around 50, 000 complaints or enquiries in the period between October 2002 and March 2003 and publishing this data can provide an incentive for companies to resolve any problems their customers have, quickly and efficiently,' said Oftel's Director General of Telecommunications, David Edmonds.

'I would like to see companies doing more towards improving their customer relations, so fewer consumers contact Oftel with queries or complaints,' he added.

The biggest beefs involved complaints being ignored by a company or lack of information about changes to services.

Points of interest in the fixed line market include NTL topping Telewest for complaints, and the fact that only Cable & Wireless and Eurocall have improved their performance (green legend) since the last survey. The biggest cause of grievance (10 per cent of complaints) involved the failure or time taken to repair lines.

Notably, in the mobile market, the average number of complaints has fallen since the last survey, and Virgin took the crown with less than 0.1 complaints per thousand customers. The main problem (6 per cent of complaints) was simply about companies ignoring customer's complaints.

The average number of complaints also fell for the ISP market. Here, Freeserve and Blueyonder fared best, and even though BTopenworld records the most complaints the ISP has actually improved its performance on the previous survey. The top complaint for this area (5 per cent) involved the quality of narrowband services.

You can see the three main tables pictured, and the full results can be found at www.oftel.gov.uk.

At the time of writing, no official response was available from BTopenworld or Cellular Operations. NPower apologised for what it described as an 'usually high level of complaints' during the period measured by Oftel. It cited a large-scale transfer of customer data from NTL as the source of the problem. 'We have been addressing every one of these complaints to make sure any problem is resolved as quickly and painlessly as possible,' said a company spokesperson. 'Because this was a one-off event we expect to see complaints declining steadily.'