Ninety percent of consumers believe that paying for technical support is wrong

A recent study has shown that around ninety percent of broadband customers in the UK feel that they should not have to pay to get technical assistance and report problems to their broadband provider.

Many consumers suffer a range of problems with their broadband and bundle services, and for many having to then pay to report the problem to the Internet service provider simply adds insult to injury, particularly given the length of time that they are kept holding when they call the ISP to report technical problems and try to get the problems sorted.

A study was recently carried out by YouGov on behalf of Kingston Communications, which owns Karoo Broadband, which is a Hull based provider. The results of the survey showed that around ninety percent of consumers believed that they should not end up footing the bill to report technical problems and breakdowns in service to the provider. Sixty eight percent thought that broadband providers used customers service lines to make more money from the customer, and forty five percent said that they had to wait at least five minutes for their calls to be answered.

Worse still around a third of customers said that the issues that they had called to get resolved were not fixed the first time around, and this meant that they had to make additional calls, again at their own cost. Nick Thompson from Kingston Communications said: “We firmly believe that it is wrong for consumers to have to pay for the privilege of reporting a problem that needs to be fixed. The survey paints a grim picture for the state of customer service in the UK – not only are businesses charging their customers to call in, they’re also making them wait far too long before being connected.”

Another industry expert stated: “Consumers are becoming increasingly frustrated that they have to pay for technical support – at a cost of up to 50p per minute with some providers. However, some broadband providers, such as O2 Broadband have bucked the trend and offer free, UK-based technical support and customer service.”