Eir ups its performance in ComReg's latest customer service report

At the beginning of February the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) published its quarterly Consumer Line Statistics report for the final quarter of 2020.

The report itself takes an in-depth look at the latest data and figures relating to customer issues and complaints made about mobile, broadband, TV and home phone service providers in Ireland. In other words, who is excelling when it comes to customer service and who is lagging behind. 

In this blog post we’ll take a look at some of the most important information from Q4 to see what providers are going above and beyond and who’s stuck in the doldrums.

To get things started, let’s head to mobile first!

Best and worst mobile providers

The issue of billing remains the most common complaint across all providers, while service issues come in second and continue to persist for providers.

The final quarter of 2020 saw complaints decrease for both Eir and Three, though Vodafone witnessed its complaints increase in the period.

Eir and Three had statistically fewer complaints by classification type compared to Q3, whereas Vodafone’s complaints increased in the areas of billing and service issues.

The issue of number portability and sourcing unlock codes for customers continues to be a problem for Vodafone with the number of complaints in this area also increasing from Q3.

Our table below shows that Eir continues to have the highest number of complaints registered over all providers in the market, even after the figures have been adjusted to account for customer numbers. 

That being said, the number of complaints against Eir has dropped considerably from the last quarter which is a good sign for new and existing customers.

Meanwhile, both Eir and Three cut down the average number of days it took for them to resolve a complaint with Eir halving its time from Q3 from 10 days to only 5.

The latest report from ComReg also included info on which mobile providers had outstanding complaints open on 31st December, broken down by the number of working days elapsed since they were first escalated to the service provider.

Eir and Three had one complaint outstanding for 41 days or more at the end of the quarter, while Vodafone had 7. However, Vodafone had relatively fewer outstanding complaints at the end of the year compared to Three.

It’s worthwhile to note that as of December 21st 2020 a new EU directive has come into force in Ireland called the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) which gives EU citizens more consumer rights when dealing with telecommunications companies.

The new directive, which ensures that consumers receive best tariff advice and increased contractual transparency, may well have a positive impact on the number of complaints seen in this report, but only time will tell.

*The figures below don't include complaints about premium rate numbers or subscriptions to premium services which are calculated separately.

Table 1: Mobile provider complaints, complaints per 100,000, and avg. no. days to resolve a complaint.

Best and worst fixed providers (broadband, TV, and Home Phone)

The most common complaint against broadband, TV and home phone providers in Q4 was around service issues, with Vodafone, Sky, and Imagine all registering more complaints than in the previous quarter.

This increase doesn’t come as much of a surprise considering ComReg only recently published a separate report which suggested that one in four say their broadband has worsened since the start of the pandemic.

The issue of billing however still remained a prominent complaint, with both Eir and Virgin media having their customers complain more about billing than any other issue. That being said, both providers welcomed a reduction in billing complaints this quarter compared to the last, as well as their overall level of complaints in general. 

In some good news for customers of Eir, the number of complaints against the broadband provider dropped dramatically in Q4 by almost 38%. However, it still remains the provider with the most amount of complaints overall, even when the figures are adjusted for its larger customer base.

Eir also rather impressively reduced its average number of days to resolve a complaint from 10 in the last quarter to only 4 in this report - another promising sign for customers.

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact reason for this reduction, but changes implemented to improve Eir's customer service can’t be ruled out, nor can a lull in business and less customer contact be ruled out either due to the approaching Christmas period. That being said, vast improvements have been made since Q3; that's why it will be interesting to see if the service provider manages to maintain this progress in the first quarterly report for 2021.

Meanwhile, Vodafone has seen a substantial increase in the number of complaints made against it, rising from 183 to 295, an increase of 61%. It also registered the highest number of complaints when figures are adjusted for market share as can be seen in Table 2 below.

Sky didn’t escape an increase in the number of complaints made against it either; the provider jumped from 44 complaints in Q3 to 78 this quarter.

While Virgin Media slipped in the previous quarter with an increase in complaints, the provider made incremental improvements towards the end of the year and had the lowest amount of complaints in Q4 when adjusted per 100,000 customers.

Even though Virgin Media's complaint resolution time increased by a day it’s still the provider to beat when it comes to customer service. Just look at the numbers below for proof!

Table 2: Fixed provider complaints, complaints per 100,000, and avg. no. days to resolve a complaint.

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Let us know what you think

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