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EE has heavily promoted its 4G service this year, and rolled it out to 160 towns and cities across the UK. But that wasn’t enough to stop customers giving the network the thumbs down, the Daily Mail reports.
The Mail has had a peek at confidential YouGov data that show EE being rated the worst mobile network in the UK. Its approval rating has also fallen faster than any other major phone firm.
EE was the first UK mobile network to launch a 4G network, back in October 2012. According to YouGov’s stats, EE’s customer satisfaction rating fell four-fold over the last year.
The YouGov report was intended only for industry eyes, and marked ‘Not for publication or distribution’, according to the Mail. I’ve contacted YouGov to see if it can confirm or refute the claims, and will update this story if I hear back.
The report is called the SMIX survey, which stands for Smart phone, Mobile Internet eXperience. It’s produced every three months, and circulated among the mobile industry. 2,000 customers were asked to rank on a scale of one to 10 of how likely they would be to recommend their network to a friend. In the last 12 months, EE fell from a score of minus five to minus 20.
One network insider reckons EE has struggled with its 4G rollout over the last year. “We don’t have stats that we can share unfortunately, but I think this report speaks volumes to the massive undertaking the 4G rollout has been for EE,” Ernest Doku, Omio‘s partnerships manager, told me.
“With the largest joint network in the UK, the teething problems that they have had over the last 14 months in delivering super-fast mobile Internet to a large percentage of the country has doubtlessly had a perceived negative impact for many customers, [and] their satisfaction levels in the survey certainly reflect that,” he went on.
“[EE] have since pledged in excess of £250m to improve their existing infrastructure, so we do hope that the network takes these concerns on board in order to deliver a better service to their millions of customers.”
An EE spokesperson told me: “We aim to offer our customers the best service at all times. We operate the UK’s biggest network and have an ongoing programme to improve customer service performance and help every customer get their questions answered quickly and easily.”
What do you make of your network? Would you recommend it to a friend? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.
