Mobile Network Operators

Customer Service Report/ Mobile Network Operators

©Brandwatch Brandwatch.com Report/ Mobile Operators © Brandwatch.comV 1.0| 1 Introduction

With the UK’s mobile networks in increasingly fierce competition with each other and an EU deal on the table to cut roaming charges by June 2017 - which some networks have already put in place for this summer (potentially now unnecessarily) - as a marketer, the mobile telecommunications industry is an exciting space to watch. With networks being rapped on billing, performance and customer service become even more important to customers and subsequently to mobile networks in the fight for their business. Adding to the pressure is the reality that despite a good Ofcom report, more directly damaging to brands is consumer comments and complaints laid out publicly and accessibly on social media.

This study looks at six of the UK’s top providers to ascertain their effectiveness in dealing with their customers via their nominated Twitter feed. Using Brandwatch Analytics, we’ve looked at the volume of mentions coming into each channel on different service issues as well as response times to customer queries to give an overall impression of where each network is at with regards to customer service.

Response times based on data collected between 10-17th June 2016. Service issues data based on mentions collected between May 16th - June 16th 2016.

Contents

Introduction ��2

EE ��3

O2 ��4

Tesco Mobile ��5

Three UK ��6

Virgin Mobile ��7

Vodafone ��8

Conclusion ��9

Thank You ��10

Brandwatch Report/ Mobile Operators © Brandwatch.com | 2 EE

Twenty-four million customers in the UK trust EE with their mobile needs and their expansion is ambitious, even more so since its takeover by BT in January of this year. The provider is aiming for 14m 4G customers this year, extending its lead as Europe’s biggest 4G provider. The company recently announced that they will allow rivals to use a state-subsidised network it will roll out as part of a contract to provide communications to emergency services in remote areas. New data from industry regulator, Ofcom, has revealed that EE offers the best 4G-based mobile broadband speeds in central London, just ahead of Vodafone.

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It comes as no surprise as the biggest provider of 4G in Europe, that after signal, 4G is the most discussed issue via the EE Twitter channel. Of all providers in the report, they have the lowest proportion of complaints into their channel surrounding signal issues. Their average response time is 4 hours 48 minutes their minimum response time is the quickest of the six providers at just 28 seconds.

Brandwatch Report/ Mobile Operators © Brandwatch.com | 3 O2

With over 23m customers, O2 is the second-largest mobile telecommunications provider in the UK after EE. It has a reputation for good customer service (highest scoring in the latest Ofcom customer service survey) and has become synonymous with it’s customer rewards program O2 Priority, which among other incentives, provides priority ticket booking at O2 venues. In January last year, a deal was put on the table for O2 to be bought by Three, making it the UK’s largest network, but in May this year, the deal was blocked by the EC, arguing that the merger would reduce consumer choice and lead to a higher cost of services.

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According to our figures, O2 users contact them on signal issues the most, as is the case with most networks in this study. Data/4G issues and billing are also frequently talked about. Their average response time is 4 hours 19 minutes and their maximum response time is 5 days and 12 hours.

Brandwatch Report/ Mobile Operators © Brandwatch.com | 4 Tesco Mobile

Tesco Mobile’s social media customer support has often earned them brownie points for witty exchanges on Twitter, but does this mean they have timely responses to real problems? They recently offered to reduce the price of customers bills if they carried ads on their screens. They have also scrapped European roaming charges for this summer. The MVNO has a customer base of 4.6m and was founded in 2003. Tesco Mobile customers are the happiest mobile customers in the UK, according to figures from Network Research.

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Brandwatch’s figures for Tesco Mobile show that signal is the most commonly discussed issue via their Twitter channel (they use O2’s network as their carrier). Charges and billing come a close second. Their average customer response time is 3 hours and 7 minutes and their maximum response time is close to 5 days.

Brandwatch Report/ Mobile Operators © Brandwatch.com | 5 Three UK

The first network of the six to offer free roaming to selected destinations (last summer), Three UK has 8.4m customers. Ofcom rates the provider as “least complained about operator” having been the most complained about mobile network just two years ago. The company launched in March 2003 as the UK's first commercial video mobile network. This June, Three UK rolled out a trial of ad blocking software at a network level in partnership with Israeli start-up Shine because “ads swallow up to 40% of customers' monthly data plans”.

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Three’s average response time according to the Brandwatch platform was 2 hours 9 minutes and their maximum response time was just short of 3 days and 7 hours. There were almost twice as many queries to the channel surrounding signal as there were for 4G and data issues. Echoing their Ofcom survey results, volumes for comments on customer service were very low.

Brandwatch Report/ Mobile Operators © Brandwatch.com | 6 Virgin Mobile

With 3.1m customers in the UK, Virgin is a MVNO that runs on EE’s network. The operator has been under fire from customers lately due to an unscheduled price hike and they were also accused in April of throttling data speeds before users got even half way to their data allowances. They do offer a rewards scheme in other territories offering free music streaming without data charges, but as yet they haven’t rolled that out in the UK.

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From Brandwatch’s analysis, signal was the most often mentioned element of the operator’s service which runs on EE’s network. The second most common enquiry was for issues surrounding billing and charges. Their average response time via their Twitter channel was 4 hours 19 minutes while their maximum response time was just over two days at 49.5 hours and the lowest of all operators surveyed.

Vodafone is the UK’s longest running network in our list. The company as we know it today was founded in 1991. Vodafone was responsible for the first ever mobile phone call in 1985 and currently has around 19.5m customers in the UK. The brand has recently been labelled as the operator with the highest number of complaints by Ofcom. Like Three, Vodafone has introduced its own inclusive roaming service, which offers customers on new (or newly-upgraded) Pay Monthly 12- and 24-month bundles given unlimited calls, texts and picture messages, as well as a monthly data allowance for selected destinations.

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Analysing the social media response to the brand via it’s own channel, Vodafone fares significantly better than it’s Ofcom reputation. The largest volume of mentions is once again surrounding signal, but the volume of mentions coming into the channel is low in proportion to their customer base. Their average response time is the lowest in our report at under two hours (1 hour 55 minutes) and the maximum response time is 3.5 days.

It is clear from this report that all the mobile companies included in the study do use their Twitter channel as an effective first point of contact for customers with a variety of queries surrounding their service. Where issues are easy to resolve or assign, it can be a very efficient method of communication leading to endorsements and praise in a very public forum. When problems are more complicated, it can become damaging to a company’s reputation if customers are ignored. Vodafone, Three UK and Tesco Mobile lead the way in terms of the highest average response time while EE have the lowest number of complaints into their channel surrounding signal (the most common query of customers into all six providers’ channels).

Because of the immediacy of social media and the expectation of a quick response, it is important that even if a brand isn’t able to directly resolve a query via Twitter, they must respond to let the customer know they’ve been heard. With pricing becoming increasingly competitive between suppliers, customer service is an increasingly important factor in customers deciding to switch networks. If companies offer social media as a means of contact, they must be prepared to put the required resource behind it to manage their channels.

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