Poll finds Vodafone second worst ISP for customer satisfaction

New findings from market research firm, Roy Morgan, have delivered another blow to Vodafone, showing that the telco is now second only to Dodo as worst internet service provider for customer satisfaction.

The findings, for the June to November 2010 period, show just 63 per cent of customers were ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ satisfied with Vodafone, which is a three per cent drop from the December 2009 to May 2010 period.

Dodo was at the bottom of the list with a rating of 59 per cent for the June to November period, which is down seven per cent from the December to May period.

Telstra BigPond, on the other hand, managed to turn around its customer service ratings in the June to November period, which increased four per cent to a 69 per cent approval rate.

Topping the list was Internode with a 95 per cent satisfaction rate, which is up by two per cent on the previous period, followed by iiNet at a stable 90 per cent.

TPG made third place at 86 per cent, followed by WestNet at 83 per cent, OptusNet at 77 per cent, iPrimus at 72 per cent, AAPT 72 per cent, and ‘3’ at 71 per cent.

“Over the past 6 months there has been a substantial investment by all the providers in new plans such as the terabyte broadband plans, service offerings such as internet TV and large scale media campaigns,” Andrew Braun, director mobile, internet and technology at Roy Morgan Research, said in a statement on the results.

“It will be interesting to see whether these tactics will improve customer satisfaction of existing customers or will just promote greater switching between the players.”

The low customer satisfaction rating follows the release last month of the Vodafail report, which outlined thousands of complaints ranging from patchy network coverage to poor customer service.

Sydney’s central business district and eastern suburbs were also found to still be some of the weakest points in Vodafone’s 3G network for reception, with more than 2000 dropouts recorded in the past two months.

In early January, as many as 9000 customers of Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) have signed up to be a part of a class action against the telco, according to the legal firm handling the action, Piper Alderman. The figure is now in excess of 20,000.

The one silver lining for the telco is its securing of Google's Nexus S smartphone.

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