Reliability and Service Awards 2006

satisfaction question of “Would you recommend your ISP to someone else?” results swung from a winning 97 percent of respondents saying yes to a dreadful 50 percent.

And there are no prizes for guessing who achieved that dubious honour. Telstra BigPond drew more respondents than anyone else at 1600. Of these, a poor 28 percent said they were satisfied or very satisfied with BigPond’s value. An unsatisfactory 26 percent said they were very dissatisfied. Only 54 percent said they were happy with BigPond’s customer support and 68 percent were happy with reliability. This combined with the 50 percent recommendation factor from so many people means that we can only warn people away from BigPond as an ISP.

BigPond’s scores are so bad that it picks up the wooden spoon for the entire survey and, based on our results, we feel justified in saying Australia’s biggest tech company is also the worst. However, it is not alone in poor feedback.

Dodo Internet was poor across the board, with only 35 percent of users satisfied with support, 55 percent satisfied with reliability and only 50 percent willing to recommend the ISP to a friend. Keep away.

There is good news. Westnet scored top marks for customer support, with an amazing 95 percent of customers saying they were satisfied or very satisfied. An impressive 93 percent said likewise about reliability and 90 percent of its customers said they’d recommend the ISP to a friend. The only mark against it was that only 66 percent said they were happy with the value for money.

However, it is well deserving of a Highly Commended award.

But there was a clear winner: 89 percent of customers said they were satisfied or very satisfied with Internode’s support and 88 percent felt positive regarding its value. But what won Internode this year’s ISP award was having 97 percent of its customers saying that they were satisfied or very satisfied with the ISP’s reliability and a similar proportion saying they’d recommend it to a friend.

That is winning form if ever we’ve seen it and we’re happy to declare Internode the Best ISP of 2006.

Bricks & Mortar Retailer

Winner: Jaycar

Not surprisingly the bricks and mortar retailer award drew a huge response: more than 9000 customer experiences were proffered. Everyone uses these shops and generally know what to expect when they go into them.

It’s notable that nobody did really badly here but Radio Rentals’ scores were distinctly average when compared to everybody else. Harvey Norman drew most votes with two-and-a-half thousand and was found to be generally good, although, not surprisingly, it wasn’t highly-regarded for its low prices. Retravision looked to be doing well but only 69 percent said they were satisfied or very satisfied with customer service. Harris Technology offered a slight improvement here but only 58 percent said they were happy with the value on offer.

The clear winner was Jaycar. Approximately 89 percent said they were satisfied or very satisfied with customer service and scores were not much lower for delivery reliability and value for money.

Online Retailer

Equal First Winners: PlusCorp • Secret • Mega PC
Highly Commended: PC Maniacs

Assessing online retailers is what actually started the ball rolling for the whole reliability and service awards. As you may be aware, PC Authority is the only magazine to quote real-world prices in its reviews as readers can’t assess value for money (properly) when referring to RRPs. Not surprisingly, when PC Authority made this switch a little over a year ago it ruffled many feathers in the industry. The common rallying cry was, “You can’t trust online retailers”. Or can you? Finally, PC Authority provides some answers.

More than 13,000 customer experiences were related in our results – 4000 more than from bricks and mortar stores. This is a sure sign that the online retailer

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