Virgin least complained about provider in Q2 2011

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Well, to be fair, you are from Plymouth......

And unless l am mistaken you have a Scottish accent.

[Tim Deegan]

Originally Posted by Chad

Virgin should be proud of those results. We are living in an age of complaints and over opinionated customers. Almost everyone has a gripe about something these days.

Does anyone know how many customers each company has?

Also Virgin have done pretty good in terms of customers complaining about their mobiles:

MOBILE COMPLAINTS
3UK - 0.14 per 1,000 customers
Orange - 0.07
T-Mobile - 0.06
Vodafone - 0.06
Virgin Mobile - 0.05
O2 - 0.02

It would be interesting to know how those statistics are compiled. I suspect that it only accounts fo complaints that have gone as far as offcom (or whoever the ombudsman is these days).

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Tim Deegan

It would be interesting to know how those statistics are compiled. I suspect that it only accounts fo complaints that have gone as far as offcom (or whoever the ombudsman is these days).

From the report:

The data only covers telecoms complaints that consumers have chosen to report to Ofcom, and does not represent complaints consumers may have made directly to their providers. As such it will only provide a partial picture of complaints by provider.
• The complaints data reflects the views of consumers as reported to Ofcom. Ofcom has sought to ensure that its data is sound but has not checked the veracity of individual complaints.

[Tim Deegan]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

From the report:

Thanks for that.

It would be good if there was an honest report with statistics provided by the companies themselves.

Even 0.15 per 1000 is a huge number to actually go all the way to Ofcom, because I should think that there are probably about another 100 who don't go as far as the ombudsman.

I makes me laugh when companies pat themselves on the back if they have 90% satisfied customers. Personally I aim to have 100% of my customers not just happy, but over the moon with our service (although there will always be the odd Victor Meldrew type who you will never please).

To be fair, you are unlikely to have over 4 million customers, so your 100% is probably more achievable.....

[Tim Deegan]

Originally Posted by Hugh

To be fair, you are unlikely to have over 4 million customers, so your 100% is probably more achievable.....

A percentage is a percentage, and 1.5% actually going to the ombudsman is abysmal. It means that 60,000 customers had complaints so serious that VM's complaints procedure wasn't enough, and they felt they had to take it to the ombudsman. And at a guess that means that they probably have had at least 10x that amount in complaints that haven't gone to Ofcom.

So this is nothing to blow your trumpet about. It is something that should be looked at very seriously. Personally I believe that the reason they don't tackle the problem is because of the lack of competition.

The only reason I have stayed with Virgin is because their service (not their customer service) is probably the best of a very bad bunch.

[BenMcr]

A number of those 'complaints' will include those customers that just didn't get what they wanted.

Someone not getting a free TiVo may take their complaint to OFCOM, who would record it as such even though it's not one

Even OFCOM themselves say that don't check whether the complaints reported are actually valid or not (from the previous report quote)

The complaints data reflects the views of consumers as reported to Ofcom. Ofcom has sought to ensure that its data is sound but has not checked the veracity of individual complaints

---------- Post added at 21:25 ---------- Previous post was at 21:23 ----------

Originally Posted by Tim Deegan

Personally I believe that the reason they don't tackle the problem is because of the lack of competition.

How do you arrive at that?

If Virgin have no competition and don't tackle complaints, wouldn't that mean they would have the highest number of complaints reported to OFCOM, not the least?

[batchain]

Originally Posted by Tim Deegan

A percentage is a percentage, and 1.5% actually going to the ombudsman is abysmal. It means that 60,000 customers had complaints so serious that VM's complaints procedure wasn't enough, and they felt they had to take it to the ombudsman.

0.15 per 1,000 customers = 600 out of 4 million.

Originally Posted by Tim Deegan

A percentage is a percentage, and 1.5% actually going to the ombudsman is abysmal. It means that 60,000 customers had complaints so serious that VM's complaints procedure wasn't enough, and they felt they had to take it to the ombudsman. And at a guess that means that they probably have had at least 10x that amount in complaints that haven't gone to Ofcom.

So this is nothing to blow your trumpet about. It is something that should be looked at very seriously. Personally I believe that the reason they don't tackle the problem is because of the lack of competition.

The only reason I have stayed with Virgin is because their service (not their customer service) is probably the best of a very bad bunch.

Erm, 0.015% actually....

[Tim Deegan]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

A number of those 'complaints' will include those customers that just didn't get what they wanted.

Someone not getting a free TiVo may take their complaint to OFCOM, who would record it as such even though it's not one

Even OFCOM themselves say that don't check whether the complaints reported are actually valid or not (from the previous report quote)


---------- Post added at 21:25 ---------- Previous post was at 21:23 ----------

How do you arrive at that?

If Virgin have no competition and don't tackle complaints, wouldn't that mean they would have the highest number of complaints reported to OFCOM, not the least?

It is very rare that complaints that aren't valid get as far as Ofcom.

The only real competition that VM have is BT and Sky. So if BT and Sky's customer service is just as bad, then why would they bother improving their customer service? There are many companies who have scrapped their overseas call centres due to complaints from customers, and because customers find companies with UK call centres more appealing. VM wouldn't do this because there isn't much alternative to VM.

---------- Post added at 22:32 ---------- Previous post was at 22:28 ----------

Originally Posted by batchain

0.15 per 1,000 customers = 600 out of 4 million.

Oops sorry, it's been a long day.

The fact remains that in just 3 months 600 of their customers have seen fit to escalate a complaint as far as Ofcom. This is still unacceptable in anyones book.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Tim Deegan

The fact remains that in just 3 months 600 of their customers have seen fit to escalate a complaint as far as Ofcom. This is still unacceptable in anyones book.

Again OFCOM have done no checking to see whether the complaints are valid or not.

It's customers who have refused any settlement of the complaint with the provider.

As I said above, I know for a fact that people have 'gone to OFCOM' because they didn't get X product free or X credit.

Just because it's a complaint to OFCOM doesn't make Virgin at fault

On the flip side to that, I'm sure there are some perfectly valid issues in there where things could have gone better.

No company the size of Virgin (or BT or Sky) are ever going to please 100% of their customers 100% of the time, and not every complaint can be resolved to the customers benefit or satisfaction

[Tim Deegan]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Again OFCOM have done no checking to see whether the complaints are valid or not.

It's customers who have refused any settlement of the complaint with the provider.

As I said above, I know for a fact that people have 'gone to OFCOM' because they didn't get X product free or X credit.

Just because it's a complaint to OFCOM doesn't make Virgin at fault

On the flip side to that, I'm sure there are some perfectly valid issues in there where things could have gone better.

No company the size of Virgin (or BT or Sky) are ever going to please 100% of their customers 100% of the time, and not every complaint can be resolved to the customers benefit or satisfaction

You are a Virgin employee, so you will probably defend them to the hilt, and your remarks are obviously biased.

I really hate the excuse "No company the size of Virgin (or BT or Sky) are ever going to please 100% of their customers 100% of the time, and not every complaint can be resolved to the customers benefit or satisfaction". We hear this sort of excuse all the time from big companies. Well it should be a priority of any company, big or small, to aim to please 100% of it's customers. But all too often they are happy just to please 90% or so.

I have personally had countless issues with Virgin/NTL over about 20 years. And I have never taken it to ofcom, so my complaints wouldn't even appear on their statistics. In fact my latest complaint was when my two businesses were without telephones for three days when we moved because I was lied to by a member of the Virgin staff.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Tim Deegan

Well it should be a priority of any company, big or small, to aim to please 100% of it's customers. But all too often they are happy just to please 90% or so.

I never said it wasn't Virgin's aim to please 100% of their customers, I'm saying its not possible

Complaints are made and end up with OFCOM due to many factors, not all of them down to Virgin.

As we going around in a circle here I think it's time to respect each others position and leave it at that

[Tim Deegan]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

I never said it wasn't Virgin's aim to please 100% of their customers, I'm saying its not possible

Complaints are made and end up with OFCOM due to many factors, not all of them down to Virgin.

As we going around in a circle here I think it's time to respect each others position and leave it at that

I never said it was possible to please 100% of customers. We all know that there are customers who are impossible to please. What I am saying is that they could do a hell of a lot more to try and please customers.

I have said that only a small percentage of complaints go to ofcom, so there are many times more that don't. So VM have nothing to blow their trumpet about.

Even from this thread you can see that many people hate the overseas call centres, because they are impossible to deal with.

I am not one of those customers who is impossible to please, yet I have had many avoidable issues with VM, that could have been dealt with far better. The worst issue is the lies that customers are told by customer service....even you can't defend that.

And what line of business are you in, Tim?