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Why has Virgin's customer service gone so bad?

annabshort1
Tuning in

Why has Virgin's customer service gone so bad?

We have Virgin mobiles, broadband & TV, credit card, bank account, mortgage because we have always loved what the brand stands for, but the service from Virgin Broadband & Mobile has been absolutely shocking ever since we switched back over to them. What's gone so wrong with this business?

Does anyone know of any other good providers that do just broadband & TV?

10 REPLIES 10

japitts
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Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

Why has Virgin's customer service gone so bad?  We have Virgin mobiles, broadband & TV, credit card, bank account, mortgage because we have always loved what the brand stands for, but the service from Virgin Broadband & Mobile has been absolutely shocking ever since we switched back over to them. What's gone so wrong with this business?

1)  The reason you see a difference in performance is that Virgin Media is a completely different business to Virgin Money.  I regret to say that you have been royally "had" if you joined with expectations that the Virgin brand stood for anything other than more money, less work for Ole Beardo.  Some Virgin operations are wholly owned by Virgin Group, some are merely cases where the Virgin brand is licensed to whoever wants to pay for it, and in the case of Virgin Media, it is a US listed company called Liberty Global, and they in turn own the UK operations built by NTL, Telewest and others. 

2)  It is generally accepted that Virgin Media's service is great when it works and you don't need to contact the company for any reason at all.  If you do, it's often a customer experience similar (I imagine) to phoning the customer care line of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.  The reason that Virgin Media has poor customer service, is that Ole Beardo doesn't care, and Liberty Global prefer low cost to good service (perhaps because it isn't their brand being dragged through the ordure).  There's clearly no worries in Branson's wine cellar, and no commitments regarding the quality of customer service from Virgin franchisees.  To access the lowest cost customer support, most of Virgin Media's customer support (but not sales, of course) is outsourced to bargain basement third world locations, and because of low wages even by local standards, there is low morale, no customer service ethic, and high staff turnover.  The agents are given a poor quality script, and told not to deviate from it.  There are no regulatory consequences to Virgin Media's poor service, and the business has adapted to a reality where customer contact is poor, internal process and systems are broken and inadequate, but the cost and effort of changing those is of less appeal than running yet another hugely expensive marketing campaign.  This has for years been possible because the speeds possible from Openreach were far, far slower.  With the creep of full fibre connections the near monopoly of high speed connection is very slowly being eroded, personally I don't think that will cause Virgin Media to change.

Does anyone know of any other good providers that do just broadband & TV?

According to Ofcom complaints data, Sky are vastly better than Virgin Media.  Personally I wouldn't touch Sky if they were the last provider on earth, due to the way they treated my elderly parents, but if the volume of data is to be believed, then Virgin Media are bouncing along the bottom, and (amongst broadband + TV providers) Sky are the least bad.  Whilst I dislike Virgin Media's very poor telephone customer service and their head in the sand management, I stick with them because my connection is fast and acceptably reliable so I rarely need to deal with the company, and if things do go wrong, I know that I need at all costs to avoid phoning the company, and use this forum, which has excellent UK based staff who will do their best to help.  If you can get problems resolved here, then for many people Virgin Media can be an acceptable even agreeable choice.

If you're determined to find another ISP, why seek a bundle?  If you want the best service, contract your internet and phone from somebody like uno, Aquiss, IDnet, CIX, who are all far better than the large ISPs for customer service, and then contract a TV service from Sky or BT without broadband?  I've had excellent experience with Zen Internet myself, but the numbers currently show a small difference between them and Sky for customer service.  Here's some food for thought.


 

TiffanyOrtiz
Just joined

As well as broadband and TV, Virgin offers landline and mobile services. In Ofcom's latest report, using data gathered from July to September last year, the regulator found that the company was the worst for mobile and TV service complaints, receiving 9 per 100,000 customers for mobile and 11 per 100,000 for TV.

myaccountaccess.com

Such a shame that it really is as bad as this

Thanks. Zen are great, I used to work there

The broadband has been shocking for the past 12 months, was installed in the most ridiculous position in the house, doesn't reach all rooms & results in our mobile phone data having to be used instead which then exceeds limits to be charged more. You are costing us a fortune for a very poor broadband service & customer service to go with it

Tudor
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

1) “was installed in the most ridiculous position in the house,” Totally your fault, VM will install their equipment anywhere in your home, you just have to ask.

2) “doesn't reach all rooms” presumably you are referring to WiFi. VM supply you with a broadband connection, speed is only guaranteed for Ethernet connected devices. VM, like all ISPs, do not guarantee WiFi reception because there are so many factors involved that are outside of their control.


Tudor
There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary and those who don't and F people out of 10 who do not understand hexadecimal c1a2a285948293859940d9a49385a2

I read a lot of complaints here about customer service being bad, but in my experience, and I have been with Virgin since it was Blueyonder or Telewest, the service I have received has been good generally. They have always resolved my issues in good time and with minimum fuss. If you have technical issues, the best place to start is on this forum, there are some knowledgeable people here who can help. 

simonajgerner
Just joined

In Ofcom's latest report, using data gathered from July to September last year, the regulator found that the company was the worst for mobile and TV service complaints, receiving 9 per 100,000 customers for mobile and 11 per 100,000 for TV. Myaccountaccess