The UK's biggest mobile providers have just been put through their paces in the latest customer survey and coming bottom of the pile is Three. This popular firm hit rock bottom in a new report from consumer champions Which? with its customers the most likely to experience problems.
In fact, nearly half (45%) of users polled in the report said they had an issue in the past 12 months - that's the most of any provider included in the survey. According to Which? the most common issues were constantly poor phone signal, network dropouts and problems resolving queries.
It's clearly bad news for Three but the other big providers have also been named and shamed.
Vodafone only managed 12th place with a customer score of 68%.
The firm received solid ratings for network reliability and download speeds but it was rated poorly for customer service.
Although EE and O2 both beat Vodafone and Three, these two providers only managed to secure a joint 10th place in the league which isn't something they will want to shout about.
So, if these main suppliers aren't winning the battle, who is providing better value and service for its users?
Which? says that Tesco Mobile came first with a customer score of 80% - scoring the highest or equal-highest across all categories.
Smarty, Giffgaff and iD Mobile all met the "Great Value" criteria for offering cheap Sim-only deals. GiffGaff and Smarty came in joint fifth place with a customer score of 75% and iD Mobile came in eighth place with a customer score of 72%. All three providers’ customers rated them highly for value for money.
All of these so-called virtual networks often use the signal from the big four providers to supply customers but then have their own SIM plans and customer service teams. For example, Smarty piggybacks off the Three network and Tesco Mobile uses O2 technology to keep customers connected.
Which? says that with the cost of living continuing to impact household budgets, the flexibility offered by virtual networks is an attractive way to keep mobile costs down. It also appears some may get better service by switching.
Speaking about the latest report, Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy, said: "The vast majority of mobile customers are with one of the Big Four providers, but our research suggests consumers could save money during the cost of living crisis and get better service by switching to a better deal – such as one of those offered by Which? Great Value providers.
"Switching to a flexible one month rolling deal with one of these providers if you’re out of contract also means you’ll be protected against the mid-contract hikes of up to 17 per cent introduced by the Big Four earlier this month."
In response to the report Three Mobile told Mirror online, “We are disappointed with these findings as we don’t believe they reflect the improvements we have made over the last few years. We have invested significantly in our network and have been rated the UK's fastest 5G network for four consecutive quarters.
"We have also been investing significantly in our systems and customer service processes which have led to major improvements in our customer experience. Delivering a great experience for our customers remains at the top of the list of our company values and it drives everything we do at Three."
