Some interesting news on TBB ...
Virgin Media O2 sheds 51,400 broadband customers in last quarter | thinkbroadband
Snippets I noticed in particular
"we have continued to be disciplined delivering growth in profitability"
"the mobile contract base contracted by 73,600 contracts"
At least, if some of the 51,400 are "older" contracts, then the load on the mail server will get lighter :-)
That's weird especially when their customer service has just won an award... https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/the-which-shoddies-2025-aH3Ht8d88q1Z
Notice how they are losing customers because of altnets and not because they are in charge of a network that when problems arise you have to take on the role of customer support and endlessly chase them.
21 days no internet.
Today was meant to be the day external work was carried out and I would be reconnected. They came, spent 2 hours (im guessing rerunning ducting) left and did no work in regards to reblowing fibre to my house.
Now I have to add another hour to the 10 hours already spent chasing customer support, 2 engineer visits (so 10 hours lost waiting in) 2 external work crews and STILL NO FIX.
You have to admit the level of incompetence shown by Virgin is UNMATCHED!
That net loss in VM broadband customers is accelerating (BT is seeing similar).
In fairness VM complaints have broadly trended downwards year on year (from an eyewateringly high starting point) and Lutz has today confirmed the (fairly new for VM) HQ focus on getting official complaint levels down https://news.virginmediao2.co.uk/our-laser-focus-on-customer-service-is-paying-off-but-we-arent-stopping-here/
The trend I notice on here is that customers don't want to wrestle with the bot triage on the helpline and frequently just give up trying to speak to a real flesh and blood human being in despair and post on here instead to see if fellow customers can help them out. If they never get through to customer services then every such abandoned call is an unrecorded failure in first call resolution.
I reckon this is why Plusnet is storming the customer service and complaints rankings and also why VM customers should take the plunge and switch to a better provider with ready access to real humans who, in addition to being real and human, also know what they are doing (A&A, Aquiss, IDNET, Zen).
I have had generally very good service from the VM forum team on here but I don't sense huge recognition of the team in Lutz's little blog post.
BT's loss is covered up by a growing FTTP roll out. It can't last forever, as roll out naturally stops in volume, but they do have the upper hand (unfortunately) over ALTNETS if a customer was with an Openreach provider already when on FTTC or ADSL as Openreach normally inherit a migration, and the brand has been around for decades. This is why the take-up on BT FTTP roll out is delivering.
The problem for VM is that when OR FTTP arrives, VM customers have not just one competitor offering services but many. If they jump to one, and the service isn't good there are others waiting in line.
Leaving VM is a one-way move, unless you are desperate to save every last pound and go for a new customer deal every 24 months. But then other OR providers also offer new customer deals.
