Last year’s Best ISP award put a cat among the pigeons when BigPond scored so low that it came bottom of the entire survey. Telstra didn’t quite pick up the overall wooden spoon this time (it was third worst overall). Step forward, Dodo Internet. Dodo’s abysmal performance is already legendary, but now we can put figures to it. Only 20% of its customers were satisfied with Customer Support. Two-thirds were dissatisfied and 45% were Very Dissatisfied. 40% were dissatisfied with Reliability and only 46% were satisfied with the Value on offer. A truly-pathetic 35% of customers saying they’d recommend Dodo to a friend was the final nail in the coffin of a truly dreadful performance – one that warrants investigation by the authorities.
Other horror stories come from Xtra Internet, which only just bettered Dodo, satisfying a paltry 43% of users with its Customer Support. Avoid. The results take some heat off Telstra BigPond, which also did woefully, considering its size. Out of 2472 customers, only 53% were satisfied with Customer Support and only two-thirds were satisfied with Reliability. A poxy 27% were satisfied with the Value on offer and 52% said they would not recommend BigPond to a friend. Dreadful. A final dishonourable mention goes to People Telecom, but there was a sizeable gap to the rest of the field, which was trailed by the distinctly-average Primus.
But there’s room at the top for excellence, and last year’s runner up, Westnet, took the laurels ahead of Internode. By satisfying 95% of its users with its Customer Support (Internode dropped to 85%) and 95% with its Reliability (Internode followed with 94%) it already had the award won.
However, points were dropped for overall Satisfaction. Only 76% of customers were happy with Westnet’s Value and Internode’s level dropped to 64%. Here Adam Internet stormed the field satisfying 91% of its customers. But overall the average level of satisfaction with Value was low, at 59%. This gives further weight to the belief that all is not well with Australia’s broadband.
But Westnet bounced back with 93% of customers saying they’d recommend it to a friend. Internode scored highly with 88% but no one could match Adam Internet again with its 96% approval rating – surprising considering the points dropped for both Customer Support and Reliability. However, with an industry average of only 72% of customers recommending their ISPs (plus a spread ranging from 96% to 35%) it’s very clear that Australia’s broadband market is far from mature and needs serious improvement.
