How to lose broadband customers and alienate people: A Manifesto.

By Neil Hawkins Senior Staff Writer Monday, 18 August 2008

How to Lose Broadband Customers Five ways Orange is inspiring other broadband providers to lose customers Keep your customer service rubbish Don't worry about broadband speeds. Super fast broadband is rubbish. Give your customers rubbish hardware Broadband deals? Broadband schmeals! Lock your customers into a lengthy contract from day one Join one of the broadband providers who are gaining, rather than losing broadband customers: O2 Broadband From £7.50 Up to 20Mb fast broadband Unlimited Free technical support 50 day money back guarantee Find out more... Be Broadband From £8 Up to 24Mb fast broadband Unlimited Free technical support Find out more... Related Broadbands News See our other recent related news stories: Broadband fair use policies explained and exposed Thought your broadband deal offered unlimited downloads until you discovered you've been throttled? Neil Hawkins digs into the small print and discovers who offers the best broadband fair use policy and who is less than fair? Who offers free broadband technical support If your broadband provider is making you pay for technical support - especially where they are at fault - you should switch providers immediately, suggests Julia Kukiewicz as she uncovers the UK broadband providers currently offering free broadband technical support.

SINCE a survey back in March claimed that half a million customers were not satisfied with its overall service, how has Orange responded to improve its lot as one of the worst broadband providers?

Unfortunately Orange’s latest results show that it has suffered a third successive drop in customer numbers for fixed-line broadband products, while providers like O2 and Be have been welcoming the broadband refugees with open arms.

How can other broadband providers looking to haemorrhage customers follow their lead? Simple, just follow our Orange-inspired Manifesto for running a rubbish broadband service.

Keep your customer service rubbish

Orange’s customer service has proved to be the main subject of complaint from users who cite long queues (resulting in high-call costs) and unhelpful staff members.

To be fair to Orange, they have made changes here, but not nearly enough in our opinion.

In fact we’ve heard about customers who have actually had their issues resolved after speaking to customer and technical support.

What’s going on? You’ll never get rid of customers by solving problems!

Rivals O2 Broadband and Be operate customer services 24/7 and for free, so there’s no point in trying to compete, I mean, think of the effort involved.

Our advice is to give the customer service staff extra tea breaks and wire up them up so that every time they answer the phone a Jim Davidson DVD plays on their screen for 5 minutes.

Don’t worry about broadband speed (fast broadband is rubbish)

Ok, so Orange’s average of 2.7Mb isn’t too bad considering BT runs at an average of 2.8Mb but you can see why Be Broadband and O2 Broadband are piling on customer’s with their services delivering an average of around 7-8Mb and potentially up to 24Mb.

Well, boohoo, so your car is faster than mine. It’s probably because there’s no restriction on your throttle. In fact you’re not throttled at all.

No matter, that vital 50Mb Windows security patch update can hang on a bit longer I’m sure.

Give your customers rubbish hardware

Technical Issues with the Orange Livebox wireless router have often left many customers fuming and frustrated.

So why bother at all!?!? Just tell customers to buy their own wireless router, if they’re going to be so picky as to complain about the one Orange generously provides they frankly don’t deserve all the fancy features that have been lovingly crafted into the Livebox.

In fact, giving customer’s a piece of kit which acts as a second phone line is surely business suicide for a mobile phone operator?!

Broadband Deals? Broadband Schmeals!

Broadband deals are for suckers.

It’s all very well giving a discount to loyal mobile customers, as O2 and Orange both do, but O2 Broadband is practically giving it away.

Yes, giving our own mobile users a £5 a month discount is a brilliant deal but they don’t even take advantage of the opportunity to lock people into another 18 month phone contract, crazy!

Perhaps it’s time to entertain the idea that it’s better to keep the same customer for two years on two 12 month contracts rather than force them to stay for 18 months and then watch them disappear over the horizon like the Roadrunner escaping from Wile E Coyote.

Lock your customers into a long contract from day one

An 18 month contract is a long time to be tied into a broadband connection, especially when the best broadband deals are changing so often.

But don’t be a mug like O2 Broadband and give people the chance to leave after 50 days, for no penalty! Whose running that company, some sort of plonker?!

Well, no actually, which is why O2 Broadband have added a shed load of new customers whilst all around them big-name broadband oldboys have been trying to cling onto theirs.

Compare Broadband Deals
Broadband Guide
Broadband Features