Vodafone receives most broadband complaints

Ofcom's quarterly complaints report, published today, reveals Vodafone received 24 complaints per 100,000 customers in the second quarter of 2023.

Sky once again had the fewest complaints, at just 5 per 100,000 customers, while the industry average was 12.

Ofcom say complaint trends have remained the same since the previous Q1 2023 report, with numbers of complaints about fixed broadband, landline, mobile and pay TV all remaining unchanged.

Source: Ofcom

Vodafone complaints

Vodafone was the most complained about broadband provided in the Q2 2023 report, receiving 24 complaints per 100,000 customers.

Ofcom say the high number of complaints were driven mostly by experience with faults, service and provisioning.

39% of Vodafone's complaints were the result of faults, service and provisioning, with the industry average sitting at 36%.

23% of the provider's complaints were a result of poor complaints handling, while 18% was due to billing, pricing and charges. Industry averages for these two categories were 26% and 20% respectively.

It's also worth noting Vodafone had average levels of complaints for their landline and mobile services, with 8 complaints for landline and just 3 for mobile.

Vodafone's broadband complaints have largely remained above average for a while now, but have usually seen their complaints exceeded by TalkTalk or Shell Energy Broadband.

Shell Energy Broadband may finally be feeling a sense of relief after a period of high complaint levels, as they continued to show improvement in Q2 2023, reporting just 13 complaints per 100,000 customers, which is only slightly above average.

Fewest complaints

Sky continue to hold the crown of 'least complained about broadband provider' reporting just 5 complaints per 100,000 customers in Q1 2023.

This also carries on from a strong performance in Ofcom's latest comparing service quality report, published May 2023.

As well as receiving the fewest broadband complaints, Sky also had the fewest landline, mobile and pay TV complaints.

Sky received 2 complaints per 100,000 for their landline service, with an industry average of 7. They also had just 2 complaints per 100,000 customers for their pay TV service, with an average of 5, and 2 complaints for Sky Mobile, with an industry average of 3.

Recently, in July 2023, Sky Mobile also ranked in the top 20 alongside Tesco Mobile for customer satisfaction in the biannual UK Customer Satisfaction Index.

Most complaints

In contrast, the broadband providers accruing the most complaints after Vodafone were TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Shell Energy Broadband, although as mentioned, Shell Energy Broadband are continuing to improve their complaint levels.

TalkTalk have also shown a slight improvement since they were the most complained about provider in Q1 2023, reducing their complaint levels from 20 to 18 per 100,000 customers.

While landline complaints are also on the higher side for TalkTalk and Shell Energy Broadband, BT received the most mobile complaints for their BT Mobile service with 8 complaints per 100,000 customers, considerably higher than the industry's average of 3.

Pay TV complaints were also high for BT and Virgin Media, with both providers receiving 10 complaints per 100,000 customers, which was above the industry average of 5.

The full results for fixed line broadband are: