Date published: 01.09.08 - not release date

Price overtakes reliability as the number one reason for switching broadband providers, as credit crunch bites.

Simplifydigital’s impartial experts take many 100's of calls a week from confused consumers looking to switch or buy broadband (https://www.simplifydigital.co.uk/broadband.aspx), digital TV (https://www.simplifydigital.co.uk/digitaltv.aspx), or home phone services (https://www.simplifydigital.co.uk/homephone.aspx). Price has become the number one reason for switching broadband providers between April and June 2008. It is closely followed by the desire to bundle digital TV, broadband and home phone services, also to save money. Lack of service reliability has slipped to third place.

The following is a list of the five most commonly reported reasons for switching broadband providers from a sample of over 1,000 callers that our impartial experts spoke with over the last three months:
1.Price. The credit crunch has seen a big increase in switching in order to save money on monthly subscriptions
2.Deal bundling. Customers are increasingly aware of the deals to be had by bundling their broadband with phone and digital TV.
3.Reliability. There remains a steady volume of customers moving because of endemic problems with service reliability. Earlier in the year this was the most commonly cited reason for switching broadband providers and has now been overtaken by money saving considerations.
4.Customer service. The inability to get through to call centres, high cost of calling call centres and frustration that call centre agents aren't empowered to solve common problems is a major reason for switching providers
5.Upgrade from dial up to broadband. There are still a significant number of customers who have dial up connections, who are now able to upgrade to a broadband and save money at the same time.


Note to editors

Simplifydigital’s (www.simplifydigital.co.uk) London-based experts help customers match their unique requirements to the best deals on the market and are then on hand to manage the install of the new services in the customers’ homes.

This list has been compiled from their experience of talking to over 1,000 customers over the last 3 months, with reasons for switch ranked by frequency of occurrence.

Simplifydigital is the 1st retailer of digital TV, broadband and home phone services to be accredited as impartial by Ofcom .