The five worst companies of 2011

Most of us have gripes and groans about companies. But which firms can be declared the worst offenders of 2011?

Once they’ve lured you in with impressive advertising and promises, many companies simply fail to deliver. Either customer service isn’t up to scratch, they charge you for services you’re not receiving or serious complaints go unanswered.

We’ve looked at the companies you should avoid in 2012.

Npower

Energy companies are never popular. Prices seem to be constantly on the up, whether or not wholesale prices are rising, and the big names often fail to get their billing right.

The top energy firms – EDF Energy, npower, E.ON, Scottish Power, Scottish and Southern Energy and British Gas – racked up more than 530,000 complaints in the last year.

Yet, despite the tough competition to be the worst energy supplier, npower seems to stand out from the crowd (and not in a good way). Looking at complaints data published on 1 November it had the worst customer complaint record with 18.45 complaints per 1,000 customers – a 10% rise on last year's figure.

At the beginning of the year, a customer satisfaction survey by Which? put npower at the bottom of the pile and in October npower was fined £2 million by regulator Ofgem for mishandling customer complaints.

TalkTalk

When it comes to cocking up, competition is also fierce in the telecoms and broadband sector. But TalkTalk definitely take the prize for underelivering.

An Ofcom survey focusing on broadband published in July found 23% of TalkTalk’s customers were dissatisfied with the customer service they received, compared to 20% for BT and Virgin Media, 16% for Sky and 11% for Orange.

It was a similar story in an Ofcom survey of phone providers - TalkTalk came resoundingly bottom of that too. My colleague Robert Powell looked at the survey results in more detail back in July.

Santander

A quick Google for “worst bank 2011 UK” pretty much comes up with one name: Santander. It seems the Spanish bank, which bought out Abbey and Alliance & Leicester amongst others, can’t do anything right.

There are numerous surveys that confirm Santander to be a disaster zone – Moneywise’s customer service survey in June, a MoneySavingExpert poll in August, the JD Power & Associates survey in November to name but a few. And, according to my contacts, the post bags of national newspaper money sections get more letters about Santander than any other company.

To be fair, Santander is trying. And while it fails miserably on customer service, it excels itself when it comes to luring in new customers. Its switching incentives are second to none and last month it introduced an innovative up-front interest bond. But once lured in customers have to deal with that terrible customer service.

Three

According to Ofcom, Three was the most-complained about network between October 2010 and November 2011, while O2 was the least.

As an O2 customer with a history of complaining, I find that hard to believe but you can’t argue with the stats.

However, the report doesn’t disclose which problems people complained about the most – it could be anything from poor network coverage to sub-standard customer care.

Vodafone and Orange haven’t been popular with customers lately either. Both sneakily upped their charges for customers on contracts this year.

Ryanair

Ryanair has never put much effort into gaining popularity with its customers or the press. The airline is well known for its extra charges but it really excelled itself this year with its own pre-paid Mastercard.

Previously the airline charged anyone paying with a debit, credit or Visa Electron card an ‘admin fee’ of £6 per one-way flight but this could be avoided by using a MasterCard pre-paid debit card.

But in September the airline announced it was launching its own pre-paid MasterCard, the Ryanair Cash Passport, and only passengers using that card could avoid the £6 fee.

However, the card comes with a whole raft of sneaky charges such as a £2.50 inactivity fee for each month you don’t use the card. If you try and avoid the fee by using the card to withdraw cash from an ATM you’ll be charged a £2 ATM fee. All in all it’s a terrible card from a terrible airline.

Who else has got your hackles up this year? And is there any company that's delivered outstanding customer service beyond the call of duty? Share your thoughts in the Comments box below.

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