There is an old adage that goes “Little strokes fell great oaks”. 

Small actions add up, especially over time. No matter how “big” an ISP is, how many clients they have, or which larger corporate entity they belong to – many little inconsistencies can still be their downfall. 

With bandwidth prices coming down, and more and more ISPs coming into the market, now is certainly not the time for ISPs to deliver bad service (or bandwidth). 

Since lockdown in SA from 26 March, there was a surge in fibre installation requests. This, as many people needed to upgrade their internet to work from home. 

According to Fibre Tiger, a fibre comparison engine for South Africa: 

• March to April fibre installation requests saw as much as 127% increase month on month.
• And April vs Feb had a 147% increase in requests for fibre!

They added that towards the end of March, just as lockdown was announced, they saw a big surge between the 25th-30th March as people were racing to get fibre before lockdown. But the nice thing about fibre was that at least ISPs and fibre installers could still operate in lockdown as an essential service provider, even in level 5.

Increased Choice in Providers

Consumers have so much more choice now, and bandwidth pricing has become a race to the bottom with ISPs falling over each other to provide consumers with the cheapest price.

What ISPs fail to realise however, is that it is not always only about price. 

Customer service is another big reason for people to change service providers. And, if you don’t like your ISP, although it is very painful to do so, you can switch providers if you’re unhappy. (Just check your T&CS – some have horrible clawbacks if you cancel less than 24 months.)

According to an article on Hubspot, (for 2020 data):

49% of American consumers switched companies last year due to poor customer service. And the top deciding factor for deciding whether or not to do business with a company, is their customer service. (Sure this is USA stats, but in SA we have zilch – except this one, which has a small percentage of SA user feedback.)

Switching Providers & UX 

I don’t understand why ISPs don’t make a bigger play to “switch clients” from their existing provider. The only ISP that I’ve seen make a play on the “switch” strategy, has been WebAfrica. But even so, their campaign focused predominantly on switching from ADSL to fibre, and more recent campaigns have focused on price.

Of 5 ISP websites I’ve looked at, not one actually uses the terminology “Switch”. How is this not something they focus on? If you don’t have it, your website customer experience is lacking IMO – as, if I’m a client coming to you to “switch”, but nowhere on the site you mention this, I’m going to click away. And no, “sign-up” and “switch” are not the same thing! The process is entirely different, yet no-one caters for that? Huge opportunity here!

1. Cybersmart – Ironically their site still pushes ADSL above fibre. They refer to fibre as Broadband, all the fibre links click out, and their UX is terrible.
2. Supersonic – I really struggle with the UX on this site. Just as with all MTN products in my opinion, no thought went into this design.
3. Cool Ideas – Can I just start with: worst domain name? I didn’t click through on it at first, because their Meta data on SERPs sux, and the domain name wasn’t obvious to me..
4. RSAweb – Probably the best landing page out of the lot, with thought through UX and even on-site chat. Just a pity their customer service and product is so bad (more on this below)
5. Vox – The only saving grace on their home page are the banners which explain some of the content concepts, but the fibre landing page is a field of text. I had to click out because it was just too much to read.

Personalisation

What I absolutely abhor is that almost none of the ISPs have any kind of personalisation in terms of their communication with their customers either. Why this is bad is that the customer feels like just another number, whereas in today’s age, you really should value your clients more, and make them feel valued too.

I was recently “forced to switch” to RSAweb by means of the ISPAfrika offload of all their non-business customers. We had no choice to move to another provider – or at least none of their communication made this seem like an option.

All the correspondence I received from RSAweb during this process was not updated to the process itself. 

It read as though I was a newly signed-up client that still needed fibre installed, router delivered and connection details – which none of the aforementioned needed to happen. Obviously. I was visibly annoyed with this as it made RSAweb seem incompetent. Furthermore, the moment the switch happened, circa 2 May, my bandwidth speed came to a screeching halt. I am signed up for 20Mbps – yet my speed test revealed that I was getting 12.47/2.89 on a good day. I emailed customer service and NO reply. 

I never wanted to sign-up with RSAweb in the first place, but I thought (since it didn’t seem like there was a choice) – “how bad could it really be?” well, it’s been bad, and it’s only been a week. And now I am choosing to cancel with them and move elsewhere because they

1. Are not delivering a good product IMO (as proven by speed test, and I can hardly work, and I can’t even stream Netflix without it buffering (and you only need 5Mbps for that to work!)
2. Customer service is non-existent. I’m still waiting on a reply from communication stating I was unhappy, and asking them to fix the situation.

Customer Service Should be Key

Customer service is what makes me choose most of my service providers. Sure, the delivery of that service needs to be good, but if you give me shitty service and a shitty experience, I’m out. If you give me great delivery, but shitty customer experience I might still consider staying with you, depending how often I need to deal with you.

RSAweb could’ve potentially exonerated themselves, and I might have given them another chance, had they provided solid customer experience by following up with me and trying to find a solution. 

With all this increased choice of providers, why is no-one making a concerted effort to improve their customer experience (and website UX)?

My Advice To ISPs To Improve Both UX & CX:

• Website

1. 1. 1. Spend some time on your website copy and update to include a section for “switching”.
      2. Update your page Titles & Meta descriptions – it will definitely help your SEO & be easier when coming off SERPs
      3. Don’t be too wordy. Be clear, be concise and make it easy to understand the offering.

• Customer Service

1. 1. Listen to your customer. Don’t just copy & paste your existing FAQ answers when it might not apply to them.
   2. Update your automated communications – whether through mail or Whatsapp.
   3. Hire a CX person. They can assist with all these processes and implement more so that you might have happier customers.

In that same Hubspot survey from earlier, existing customers are far cheaper to retain than acquiring new customers. So keep them happy.

Have your say. 

I’d really like to hear about good experiences you’ve had with ISPs, as I’m in the market to change providers.

*opinions my own.