EE, Vodafone and BT TV top Ofcom’s complaints list

Ofcom has revealed that EE is the most complained-about landline and broadband provider in the UK, whilst Vodafone topped the list for the mobile market and BT in the Pay TV market.

The report, which covers the nine months from April to December 2014, shows the volumes of consumer complaints made against major providers of telecoms and pay TV services.

For landline telephone services, the inclusion for the first time of EE – due to a lowering of the market share of companies included – revealed it to be the most complained-about provider over the nine months, with complaints peaking at 0.33 per 1,000 customers in Q4 2014.

Complaints about EE’s landline service mainly related to problems with changing provider, faults, service and provision problems and customer bills.

Plusnet, TalkTalk, BT and Post Office HomePhone also “consistently generated complaints” per thousand customers that were above the industry average for their landline services.

Virgin Media and Sky both attracted below-average landline complaints per customer over the period, with Virgin Media finishing the year with the lowest number (0.06 per 1,000 customers).

EE also generated the most complaints for broadband as a proportion of its customer base over the nine months, with 0.42 complaints per 1,000 customers by the end of 2014.

Complaints were driven by faults, service and provision problems as well as complaints over handling and problems changing provider.

BT, Plusnet and TalkTalk also generated above industry average broadband complaints per 1,000 customers over the period.

Both Sky and Virgin Media generated broadband complaint volumes below the industry average, ending the year with 0.06 complaints per 1,000 customers, respectively.

In the most recent quarter, Vodafone was the most complained-about pay-monthly mobile provider (with 0.15 complaints per 1000 customers in Q4 2014). However, EE was the most complained-about provider of pay-monthly mobile services over previous quarters.

The inclusion for the first time of Tesco Mobile showed it to generate the fewest complaints in the pay-monthly mobile market, finishing 2014 with 0.02 complaints per 1,000 customers.

In the Pay TV market, Ofcom received the most complaints about BT TV, although these declined slightly to reach 0.15 per 1,000 subscribers by the end of the year. This was five times the industry average.

The main causes of complaints were service faults and provisioning, complaints handling and problems changing provider.

TalkTalk’s TV service also generated well above-average complaints, though these also declined to reach 0.10 per 1,000 subscribers by the end of 2014.

Sky continued to generate the lowest volume of pay TV complaints – 0.01 for every 1,000 customers at the end of the year.

“Complaints figures help inform consumers’ choices of telecoms and pay TV services,” said Claudio Pollack, director of Ofcom’s content and consumer group.

“There are now more providers included in our report, so people can compare complaints figures for all the biggest companies.

“While operators still have room to improve their performance, it’s encouraging to see a continuing decline in the total volume of complaints.”

Note: The report includes data for operators with a customer market share of at least 1.5% – a lower threshold than in previous reports. As a result, for the first time, EE, Plusnet and Post Office HomePhone are included in landline complaints; Plusnet is included in broadband; and Talk Mobile and Tesco Mobile are included in pay-monthly mobile figures.

All charts credited to Ofcom.