Customers give EE the thumbs down as it becomes the worst-rated phone company over the past year

By PETER CAMPBELL FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Updated: 07:17 EST, 26 December 2013

Customer satisfaction with phone firm EE has slumped during the year in which it heavily promoted its ‘superfast’ 4G service.

Data from respected polling company YouGov shows the group’s approval rating has fallen faster than any other major phone firm.

EE, a collaboration between Orange and T-Mobile, was the first company to launch 4G mobile broadband in October 2012. It has spent the months since rolling out the network across the country and aggressively advertising its new products.

Worst-rated phone company: EE fell from a score of minus 5 to minus 20 in the last 12 months

But during the year it was promoting the service – which rivals Vodafone, O2 and Three did not offer – customer satisfaction with the brand fell four-fold according to the metrics used.

YouGov asked EE customers to rank, on a scale of 1-10, how likely they would be to recommend the network to a friend. Taking only the highest and lowest answers, the findings were collated and published within the sector.

The document is intended only for industry use and marked ‘Not for publication or distribution’. But the Mail has seen a copy of the results, which show that EE fell from a score of minus 5 to minus 20 in the last 12 months – making it the worst-rated phone company.

The SMIX survey – Smartphone, Mobile Internet eXperience – based on interviews with 2,000 smartphone users is produced every three months. It is made available to operators, retailers, handset manufacturers, regulators and other interested parties – but not the public. It is used by network operators to assess performance in terms of customer service against peers.

EE is Britain’s biggest mobile phone company, with an estimated 27million customers across its three brands of EE, Orange and T-Mobile.

The group, owned jointly by Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom, is preparing to float next year in a listing that could value it at up to £9billion and see it enter the FTSE 100.

An EE spokesperson said: ‘We operate the UK’s biggest network and have an ongoing programme to improve customer service performance and help every customer get their questions answered quickly and easily.’