Why has everyone got bad reviews??

[Musings225]

Want to leave sky broadband after price increase but virgin media, vodaphone, now and bt all have such bad reviews! Whose your broadband with and how do you find the product and customer service?

I think people are more likely to leave bad reviews than good ones tbh.

I’ve been with BT for years and they’ve been great. I moved last year but had a few months between houses so technically I couldn’t take my contract with me. They waived the cancellation fee and gave me a favourable deal when I moved in to the new house. All their call centres are UK based and everyone is so friendly.

EE. Never had a problem with them

People usually only leave a review when something goes wrong and they want to vent. Half of the bad reviews will be things that could easily have been dealt with by customer services and didn't really warrant a review. Go through the worst ones and just study the 'quality' of the bad reviews. You can usually work out which ones were just sounding off about something that wasn't review worthy and doesn't actually reflect on the company itself.

TalkTalk used to be absolutely terrible but they've really improved. I always get through quickly to a UK-based call centre and they've kept my price the same for the past 3 renewals (excluding the annual inflation rise).

BT was hell on earth by comparison. Could never get through to someone in the UK, all 'computer says no' responses read off a script.

EE. They're fine - we haven't had any problems. We've been with BT and Sky in the past and I think we left because they'd got so expensive.

BT were TERRIBLE when we had them. Catalogue of errors culminating in them actually breaking the line and OpenReach having to fix it (who are kind of part of BT, but no other supplier could have used it at that point)

Some of the new fibre providers are upping the game - Community Fibre etc if you have them in your area.

I always found Sky very good but they are a bit evil empire and one of the more expensive.

EE/BT and no problems getting through. Like all companies at the minute you have to ring up yearly to get on a new deal but always managed to get through.

We’ve been with Virgin and Sky and generally the service is always fine when you’re with them. When you leave is when the service goes to pot. We had absolutely no issues with Virgin but were moving and Vrigin didn’t supply our new house so had no choice but to end the contract, they tried charging us for the box we’d sent back and taking extra DD. Sky we left because they were so expensive and upwelling us on stuff we didn’t want. My main problem with sky is just the constant harassment of trying to get us to come back to them.

People need to feel motivated to write a review. When things go wrong it gives people that motivation. When everything is working well it doesn't really enter your mind to pop off and leave a review. Especially for a service such as your ISP. You barely think of about it or notice it when it's running smoothly. It's only when a problem happens you pay it any mind.

We are with Virgin on the 1gb package. I cannot fault them. Our internet performs great without any bandwidth issues, even though we are heavy users (work from home mainly on video calls all day, several gamers in the house, some live streaming and movie/tv streaming etc. all happening at the same time without lag). We are a house of 5.

They also give us the best price, however we will ring whenever a deal comes up to negotiate a new one.

I think I the service performance and stability can vary regionally though (for any provider due to the infrastructure), so just because it's great where I am, it may not be so good for you. I am west London.

We’ve been with EE for years, always managed to get good service, now they’re in with BT it seems to be better getting a good deal. We’ve just got their new super fast broadband with tv box included, the added extras of BT Sport, Netflix and Amazon Prime all work out cheaper in a package.

Nice to know EE is getting good reviews here... I think we're in a Virgin area and they're horrible.

The problem with BB providers is they've got you trapped. You might only have their service, so they can charge what they like. If you work from home, a stable connection is VITAL, and we've had Virgin cut off numerous times (amazingly frustrating during Teams calls or interviews!). We complained and they came back to us saying that they'd drop the rate, but wanted us in a contract for another year saying that if the connection cuts out, we'd get £100. My partner (not the best negotiator) jumped on this, despite being adamant that we were switching to BT. What they don't tell you is it has to cut out for a whole day, uninterrupted! - so you'll never see that money. Now we're stuck with them.

The ONLY requirements for these companies are reliability and customer support... and BT and Virgin are horrible at both (from my experience).

If you're happy with the broadband, have you compared prices?

No point in moving if it costs the same.

If anyone knows what ShellEnergy is like for broadband, let me know.. I'm hoping through the same process for to price hikes, and they are very affordable, but rate worse than my current provider.

To answer your question op, I'm currently with Vodafone. I've had no trouble with them. I'm only thinking of leaving because of the price rises.

Only Zen have been any good in my experience.

BT were particularly and spectaculary cunty more than once, and trying to switch to Virgin never actually worked.

Vodafone were gits for my mobile phone so I have never used them again.

Plusnet have been really responsive when we have had a problem. Once was a street box fault and the other old wiring in the junction box within the house.

Virgin have been great for me, but if you live 1/4 mile down the road they have regular problems with the cable being damaged. No idea why.

I would never ever go back to Vodafone though, absolutely dreadful.

BT were horrific for us and for a company that's business is communication their communication is beyond woeful!
We've been with Virgin and Sky, and both were far better for customer service

Three 4G. Cheap, fast and you don't need a phone line 😀

They get bad reviews because a basic level of service is expected. They can fail to meet this expectation and get a bad review, but they cannot realistically exceed the expectation. We expect a stable service, a fair price and competent customer service.

I have been with TalkTalk for years and am pretty happy with them. The technology all works fine and they are generally easy to get hold of and helpfully responsive. They have dropped the cost of my package on several occasions when I've said I might cancel because the price has crept up too high.

I've been with Virgin for probably 20 years and they've been great - could count the number of outages on the fingers of one hand and can always get through to talk to someone if needed. They do cold call to upsell though which is a bit of a PITA.

I wouldn't go back to Sky though.

When I had a problem with my broadband, they refused to deal with it, telling me to phone BT. I had no contract with BT, why on earth would they deal with me? Useless.

TalkTalk have appalling reviews but I've never had an issue with them. Been with them for many years.

Virgin used to be great but then the customer service became as bad as Sky's so I left when I moved house somewhere without their cables so I could get out of the contract.

I'm with BT now, and they are fantastic. Always get through to customer services easily, and they always respond to problems and correct them quickly. Even during covid. Not that we have had major problems - I once phoned to see if it would be possible to get better wifi reception on my patio and they sorted it.

A friend is with TalkTalk and she hates them - nothing but problems that they constantly blame on her.

I've just moved from Shell Energy. The broadband was very patchy and slow, and they were obstructive when I was switching to the new provider. They have recently been sold to Octopus, so goodness knows what's going on there.

That was to @NeverEnoughPants