NZ's largest telcos lag field in customer satisfaction says Consumer NZ

Thursday 2nd February 2017

New Zealand's two largest telecommunications retailers, Spark New Zealand and Vodafone New Zealand, lagged the field for customer satisfaction in the latest telco survey from Consumer NZ.

Out of seven internet companies included in the survey, Flip came out on top with 64 percent of its customers saying they were “very satisfied” with the service they received, compared with the industry average of 47 percent. Only 43 percent of Spark customers and 41 percent of Vodafone customers were very satisfied with their retailer. A satisfied ranking shows the percentage who rated their provider 8, 9 or 10 on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 being very dissatisfied and 10 being very satisfied.

Both Spark and Vodafone scored comparatively poorly when it came to value for money, Consumer NZ said. In addition, Vodafone’s customers were less likely to be very satisfied (and more likely to be very dissatisfied) with the customer support they received and the accuracy of their bills.

In the mobile sector, Skinny Mobile - a division of Spark - had the most satisfied customers in the mobile market: 69 percent were satisfied with the service they received. 2degrees was the runner-up in the satisfaction stakes with 59 percent of customers satisfied. Only 53 percent of Spark customers said they were satisfied and 50 percent of Vodafone customers said they were. The industry average was 54 percent.

The most common regular problems with internet and mobile services were long customer service wait times followed by slower-than-expected speeds.

The government plans to make ultra-fast broadband accessible to 80 percent of New Zealanders by 2022. Its fibre-optic cable network was 70 percent complete in October. Of those who had taken the plunge, 65 percent said the installation process had gone smoothly. Others weren’t so lucky. The main complaint was unmet time frames for installation, an issue for 23 percent. Other problems included poorly restored property following installation (9 percent); damaged property during installation (6 percent); and unexpected costs (5 percent).

Consumer NZ’s telco survey included more than 1,050 New Zealanders, aged 18 years and older.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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