18/07/2017
Following research that shows the proportion of ‘engaged’ customers who have shopped around, negotiated or actually switched supplier over the past two years varies significantly across communications markets, Ofcom is seeking views on ways to help vulnerable and less engaged customers access the best deals for their needs.
The degrees of engagement in different markets are reflected in Ofcom’s research, which identified whether customers were inactive, passive, interested or engaged across different services.
It found, for example, that just 7% of consumers taking landline services on their own were ‘engaged’, compared with 39% of consumers who bundle landline, broadband and pay TV services together.
One of a series of Ofcom initiatives to break down the barriers that prevent people from engaging in communications markets, ‘Helping consumers to engage in communications markets: Call for inputs’ outlines three potential reasons why some people fail to shop around and suggests possible measures to address them.
The reasons are
- some contract terms may deter people from switching
- people may not be fully aware when to review their existing deal or
- lack confidence identifying a deal or package that meets their needs
Feedback from the consultation and other sources will inform ‘real world’ trials of possible measures that will commence next spring
Switching between Openreach, KCOM, Virgin Media and Sky
Proposals for a process that would have enabled customers to switch landline, broadband or pay-TV services between different networks by contacting only the provider they were moving to have been scrapped for switching services between Openreach, KCOM, Virgin Media and Sky.
Ofcom has concluded that the costs were significantly higher for the providers than originally estimated and pursuing the proposed changes would not, at present, be in consumers’ best interests.