Virgin Media tops Ofcom complaints list again

Ofcom’s HQ (Source: Ofcom)

Virgin Media has retained its position as the most-complained about pay TV, broadband and fixed phone provider in the UK in Ofcom’s latest rundown of complaints received, covering the period from October to December last year.

While Virgin Media was the most complained about across all three services, the company did see a sizeable fall in all of these areas from the previous quarter. Customers’ complaints were again mainly driven by how their complaints were being handled.

Sky continued to generate the fewest complaints for both broadband and landline services.

Sky and TalkTalk were the least complained about pay-TV providers this quarter.

O2 was the most complained-about mobile operator, with complaints again primarily driven by how customers’ complaints were being handled. Sky Mobile, Tesco Mobile, EE and Vodafone received the fewest complaints in the mobile sector.

In pay TV, Virgin Media generated 13 complaints were 100,000 customers, compared with an industry average of five. Sky and TalkTalk each generated two complaints per 100,000, while BT generated seven.

While Virgin Media was by far the most complained about provider in the last set of figures compiled by the UK regulator, covering July to September, Ofcom acknowledged that a factor in Virgin Media’s complaints figures for this quarter was its launch of an investigation into customers’ difficulties cancelling contracts and how the company handled complaints, launched last July.

Fergal Farragher, Ofcom’s Policy Director, said: “We can see from these latest figures that customer dissatisfaction remains at a similar level to the previous quarter. While there has been an improvement in Virgin Media’s performance, its position at the bottom of our tables shows there is further room for improvement.”

A Virgin Media spokesperson said: “We’re committed to providing an excellent service to our customers, and while overall these complaints represent a very small proportion of our customer base, we acknowledge there is a need for improvement, which is underway, and we’re focused on getting this right.

“We are investing heavily and making changes across our business to deliver tangible improvements – for example through multi-skilling our teams and rolling out new IT platforms that will make it easier for customers to get support when they need it, and empowering our people to resolve any issues quickly and effectively first time.”