4 Things We Learned From 15,945 Reviews of Australian ISPs

For consumers, one of their most important relationships is with their Internet Service Provider (ISP). The Internet is like oxygen and when we don’t have access to it, it feels like we are drowning. Whether it be work, communication, or entertainment, the Internet (and the ISPs that deliver it) is a connection that we feel we can no longer do without.

Australian ISPs generate a lot of passion in discussions about speed, prices, the NBN, and customer service. With more choices than ever, ProductReview wanted to provide insight into how Australian ISPs are performing. We analysed 15,945 reviews we have received as well as the 542,169 consumers who researched our ISP category in the last 12 months.

Looking through the data, four key insights emerged:

Consumers are reading the review content: While the ratings and number of reviews are the headlines, the review content is the actual story. Consumers researching more than one ISP do read through the reviews. This is an important part of their purchase journey and what they read influences their decision. Australian consumers not only want to read reviews; they now expect to read reviews.

Customer experience counts: Customer experience has been a growing trend in the past several years. In a competitive space like ISPs, customer experience is key to winning, serving, and retaining customers. With Internet speeds, prices, and packages becoming more commoditised, customer experience is often the only avenue to grow an ISP’s business.

Mid-sized brands are winning the battle: ISPs like Mint Telecom, Boom Broadband, MATE Communicate, Tangerine Telecom, Australia Online and Skymesh are using customer experience as a key differentiator to attract consumers. These ISPs consistently have good customer feedback and they are using this to win business.

Bigger brands are losing the war: Larger ISPs like TPG, Belong, iiNet, Dodo, Optus, and Telstra Broadband all scored below the category average. The time consumers spend researching these brands is often the highest, which means potential disruption to existing paths to purchase. Consumers can spend as much as five times as long reading poor reviews compared to positive ones.

To provide more insight, we have created an infographic that provides data on the reviews we have received, consumers researching, and which ISPs are the highest rated, most reviewed, and most popular. You can view the infographic below or click the link to see an interactive version online. You also might be interested in an earlier post, “Why Australian ISPs are losing customers (and they probably don’t know it yet)”.

Internet Service Providers: March 2017 Interactive Infographic