More than 4,000 mobile customers were surveyed about their experiences by Which? and the ‘Big Four’ mobile firms – EE, O2, Three and Vodafone – were outclassed by smaller rivals.
Three was at the bottom of the table for the second year in a row, receiving a customer score of 63%. It left its customers underwhelmed with poor ratings across most of the categories Which? looked at, including network reliability, customer service and value for money when roaming.
O2 and Vodafone fared slightly better, with customer scores of 68% and 69% respectively. Which? said O2 usually returns a consistent but unimpressive row of average ratings, but this year customers were less impressed – rating most categories as poor, including customer service, ease of getting in touch and technical support.
Vodafone received mediocre scores and was rated particularly poorly for communication with customers, network reliability and incentives and rewards offered.
EE fared better than the other big providers this year, coming in mid-table with a customer score of 71%. It still received mostly average scores across the board and was rated particularly well for download speeds. But incentives and value for money when roaming were rated poorly, with just two stars out of five.
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Increasing prices
To add insult to injury, the Big Four providers are also upping their prices each year. O2 is hitting all customers with an annual increase of £1.80 per month for SIM-only contracts. This compares with £1.50 per month for EE customers, £1 to £1.50 for Three, and £1 to £1.80 for Vodafone.
EE is the only network to announce a new price increase – of £4 per month – for customers on bundled contracts, where the price of the phone and SIM are not split.
At the other end of the scale, most smaller providers do not impose mid-contract price hikes, which makes their cheaper, more flexible SIM-only deals even better value.
Which are the best mobile networks?
Smarty, Voxi and Talkmobile all received customer scores of 80% or more and came top of Which?’s table.
Smarty topped the table with a score of 82%. Its customers were particularly pleased with its overall value for money – it does not offer handsets or fixed-term contracts, just rolling SIM-only deals at low prices.
Voxi and Talkmobile followed just behind with scores of 81% and 80% respectively. Both networks performed particularly well for network reliability, value for money, download speeds and quality of communications. Both firms also offer affordable deals without mid-contract price hikes.
Value for money
Which? said the survey results clearly show that smaller providers are outperforming their bigger rivals in several areas, especially in value for money.
Rolling monthly SIM-only contracts for the Big Four networks start from £19, whereas these are available for less than £5 from some of the top-performing smaller firms, with more data included.
Natalie Hitchins, Which?’s head of home products and services, said: “Our research shows that smaller providers are outshining the biggest mobile network firms across the board.
“Many smaller providers offer better customer service, more reliable connections and cheaper SIM-only deals without any mid-contract price hikes – giving their customers more certainty about what their monthly bill will look like.
“Any customers who are nearing the end of their contract and are unhappy with their current provider, or could stand to make savings, should not hesitate to vote with their feet and move to a different provider.”
