NOW Broadband continues to gather most complaints

Industry regulator Ofcom has released their quarterly complaint report for Q2 2024, which reveals NOW Broadband is still the most complained about broadband provider.

Sky continued to be the least complained about broadband provider, while Sky and TalkTalk were the least complained about pay TV providers.

EE received the most landline complaints, while O2 was the most complained about mobile provider for the quarter.

Source: Ofcom

Broadband complaints

Ofcom reports on the number of complaints it receives directly from customers about providers. Their latest report, covers the Q2 2024, April to June period, where NOW Broadband continued to generate the most complaints in the broadband sector.

NOW Broadband received 18 complaints per 100,000 customers in Q2 2024, slightly down from the 22 complaints received in Q1 2024.

While the industry average for Q2 2024 was 10 complaints per 100,000 customers, Vodafone, EE, Virgin Media, and NOW Broadband all received more than the average.

Sky remained the least complained about provider for the ninth quarter in row, since Q1 2022 when EE had slightly fewer complaints.

While NOW Broadband complaints have been increasing since Q2 2023, this is the first quarter they've begun to decline again.

Ofcom said the rise in complaints about NOW Broadband has been due to how the provider has been handling customer complaints, with 38% of complaints regarding complaints handling.

34% of complaints were about faults, service and provisioning, while in the previous quarter 47% of complaints were attributed to poor complaints handling.

At the time, in July 2024, a spokesperson for NOW Broadband said, "We're absolutely committed to ensuring our customers have the best broadband experience - although this represents a small proportion of our customers, we're still disappointed by this number. We're making improvements to ensure that our customers are fully supported throughout their journey with us."

It's pleasing to see that complaint numbers have reduced for NOW Broadband, but it's likely they'll want to continue that trend to bring complaints down further.

Fergal Farragher, Ofcom's Policy Director, said, "While complaints numbers remained broadly the same during this quarter, we're pleased to see slight falls in complaints across some of the services covered by these figures.

"Communications services are now essential to our daily lives and customers deserve a high level of service. We call on providers to improve their performance in areas in which they are currently falling short."

Landline complaints

EE received the most landline complaints, with 15 complaints per 100,000 customers, while they also had more than the industry average number of broadband complaints.

NOW Broadband also had a high number of landline complaints, with 10 complaints per 100,000 customers, slightly more than Virgin Media with 8 complaints.

The industry average for landline was 5 complaints per 100,000 customers, and Utility Warehouse and Sky received the lowest with 0 and 2 complaints respectively.

Ofcom said EE's high number of complaints was driven primarily by faults, service and provisioning, with 41% of their complaints categorised by this.

Pay TV complaints

EE and Virgin Media also received the most pay TV complaints, with 9 complaints per 100,000 customers each.

In comparison, Sky received 1 complaint for their pay TV service, while TalkTalk received 2 complaints per 100,000 customers.

Ofcom attributed the high number of complaints to poor complaints handling, with 43% of Virgin Media's complaints and 31% of EE's complaints due to the way they handled complaints.

Mobile complaints

In the mobile sector, O2 was the most complained about provider, picking up 8 complaints per 100,000 customers, compared to the industry average of 3 for this quarter.

Tesco Mobile had the fewest complaints at just 1 complaint per 100,000 customers, while EE, Vodafone, and Sky Mobile all came joint second with 2 complaints.

ID Mobile and Three also had just 3 complaints per 100,000 customers.

Ofcom said O2's complaints were also mainly driven by poor complaints handling, with 33% of their complaints about this, while 24% was due to faults, service and provisioning, and 19% due to billing, pricing and charges.