Inspire customers happiest with ISP

A Palmerston North internet service provider, Inspire Net, appears to have found the secret to subscriber happiness, being voted top of a Consumers' Institute satisfaction survey for the second year running.

Ninety-five per cent of Inspire customers who took part in the survey were fairly or very satisfied with the ISP's service.

Overall, the 8377 people who took part in the survey, conducted in August, were more satisfied with the service their ISP gives than those surveyed last year. Even the 16th-ranked ISP, Telecom-owned Xtra, scored a 78 per cent rating, compared with 62 per cent last year.

Inspire has been operating since 1998 and has about 12,000 subscribers. The company says it places emphasis on customer support, making sure all calls to its help desk are answered by a human within 30 seconds and that the problem is dealt with in one call.

Company founder James Watts says the result is gratifying.

"It's why I built the company in the first place. I was fed up with the service I was getting from other ISPs."

The biggest improvement from last year's survey is Actrix, which went from eighth to third, with a 92 per cent rating.

Orcon slipped from second to 11th, despite a two-point rating improvement this year compared with last.

Half the people surveyed were dial-up internet users and half broadband. Eighty-eight per cent of broadband users had DSL connections, 8 per cent cable, 4 per cent wireless and 2 per cent satellite.

The happiest customers were cable, 90 per cent of whom were fairly or very satisfied, compared with 87 per cent for wireless, 83 per cent for DSL and 63 per cent for satellite.