The worst UK companies for customer service

Pedro Goncalves

Virgin Media, Scottish Power, and British Gas have been named the worst performers in customer service within the broadband and energy sectors, according to consumer group Which?.

Virgin Media has been singled out as the worst-performing broadband provider, with an overall customer service score of 29, well below the sector average.

Key areas of dissatisfaction include the time taken to reach a helpful representative (scoring just 18), and the resolution of issues (both scoring 38).

Half (50%) of Virgin Media customers reported at least one service issue, with common complaints including long wait times (51%), being passed between departments without resolution (36%), and unhelpful advisors (34%). One customer recounted spending 10 hours over several months attempting to resolve a single issue.

One customer, Stephen Smith, aged 69 from Warrington, experienced an area-wide outage with his Virgin Media broadband and TV in April 2024. After the outage, his broadband started dropping out.

He tried contacting Virgin Media by chat and phone call but both were very slow to be answered. He spoke to an advisor over the phone who suggested that the hub needed resetting — even though this had already been done three times.

She arranged for a technician to visit but Stephen had to chase to confirm the date. The technician fixed the problem but just hours later the issue re-occurred and Stephen had to go through the same customer service process all over again.

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He said: "Virgin Media customer service is obstructive, they don't listen to the customer and seem to want to just go through the same procedure to try to resolve the issue.

"They should make it as easy to complain or cancel as it is to place an order. The phone is answered almost instantly by sales but when waiting to speak to customer service, you are forced to wait far too long. It is highly unlikely that I will continue with Virgin internet and TV after my experience."

In the energy sector, Scottish Power and British Gas were identified as the worst performers, scoring 34 and 43 respectively for overall customer service. Despite recent investments aimed at improving customer service, both firms still fall short of the sector average.

Scottish Power received the lowest scores across all metrics, including a 23 for response time and 33 for issue resolution. British Gas fared slightly better but still lagged behind, particularly for response times (30), query resolution (39), and keeping customers informed (43). Over half of the customers for both companies reported at least one service issue in the past year, with long phone wait times being the most common complaint.

In one case, Kenneth Alsop, aged 78 from near Ashbourne in Derbyshire, was transferred to British Gas in March 2022 when Together Energy ceased trading. He had a smart meter installed in April 2022 but had found the readings on his smart monitor and the readings on his British Gas account were different from those on his meter.

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A British Gas engineer installed a new monitor but the readings on his British Gas account still didn’t match those on his meter at home.

Alsop started a formal complaint with British Gas in October 2023 and has since been contacted by several different advisors trying to resolve the issue. Following agreement with British Gas on how he will be billed in future, Kenneth has agreed to his complaint being closed after seven months. However, the underlying issue of meter readings failing to match up remains.

Kenneth said: “Each time a new advisor took up my case they would try and take me through the same process of providing photographs of my meter readings and sending me their leaflet on how to read a meter. They would end up informing me that the meter readings British Gas are using to bill me are correct but not explaining why the readings I was obtaining were different. It seemed like an endless process of going round in circles.

“What I would like to see is one advisor dealing with a complaint. It would also help if you could talk to the advisor rather than just relying on exchange of emails.”

Other common customer service issues with Scottish Power included being given false promises by the customer service team (30%) and not being given good advice or support (26%). One Scottish Power customer told Which? that they had an unexpected debit of over £1,000 on their energy account. Their questions were not answered by customer service and after eight weeks of frustration, they then had to go to the Ombudsman to resolve the issue.

The Which? survey was conducted in May 2024, involved 4,101 participants and aimed to identify the sectors and companies where customer service is falling short.

The survey found that financial services lead in customer satisfaction with a net satisfaction score of 72, while energy and broadband sectors lag significantly behind, scoring 51 and 52 respectively.

Which? has called on the CEOs of Virgin Media, Scottish Power, and British Gas to address these issues and enhance their customer service standards. Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at Which?, highlighted the unacceptable state of customer service in these essential sectors.

“Our research lays bare the dire state of customer service, with some companies simply not up to scratch,” Concha said. “It is never OK for firms to provide sub-standard customer service, but in essential sectors providing vital services millions rely on every day, such as energy and broadband, it is completely unacceptable."

Which? has demanded that the companies clearly communicate the steps they are taking to improve their customer service.

In response, a British Gas spokesperson said: "The survey is not representative, out of 4,101 respondents it included less than 500 of our customers and is based on data that is up to a year old."

A Virgin Media spokesperson said: "We are making real changes across our business to deliver customer service improvements and we’re already seeing tangible results that wouldn’t be reflected in this old survey from Which? that, incidentally, represents less than 0.01% of our customer base."

A spokesperson for Scottish Power said: "We service 2.9 million customers a year across a range of channels, including phone, chat, email, and online. 97% of customer emails were responded to within two days and our average speed of answering phone enquiries is under 107 seconds."

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