Now is the time to jump online with NOW!

The internet – it’s hard to imagine life without it. Over the past two decades, it’s become an integral part of all our lives. It has shaped the way we work and learn, and opened so many new entertainment options.

Along with running water and power, broadband is an essential utility in all our homes. That’s why having reliable and affordable internet is so important. Life grinds to a halt without access to the web, and usually elicits howls of protest from the kids!

But when choosing the right broadband provider there are more factors to consider than just value for money. Great customer service – to help in those times of dreaded slowdown or outage – is important. And network performance, too, has to be first-class.

So as part of our mission to help guide NZ consumers, Canstar Blue canvassed the opinions of 3762 broadband customers across a range of categories to measure and track their satisfaction.

To decide which internet provider offers the best level of customer satisfaction, each was rated across the following categories:

• Overall Satisfaction
• Bill Clarity
• Clarity of Contract Terms
• Customer Service
• Flexibility of Contract
• Network Performance
• Value for Money

Coming out on top and winning Canstar Blue’s award for Most Satisfied Customers | Broadband was NOW, which topped our internet ranking by scoring Five Stars in each of the above categories, except Bill Clarity, for which it was awarded Four Stars.

Of the 12 other providers that were rated, the only other Five-Star winner was Skinny, which earned Five Stars for Bill Clarity, and Four Stars in all other categories. Also standing out from the field was 2degrees – which deserves an honourable mention for earning a consistent Four Stars across the board – and Bigpipe, which won Four Stars in every category apart from Customer Service, for which it was awarded a solid 3 Stars.

What Customers’ Want

NOW prides itself on its Kiwi-based customer service team, which is one of the reasons it won Five Stars in that category. Of our respondents’ three main drivers of satisfaction, customer service was rated just as highly (25%) as all-important network performance (26%) – both just behind value for money (28%). Overall, the main drivers of satisfaction were:

We Are a Nation of Streamers

Of our respondents, over 80% said they have access to super-fast internet, via either fibre optic (60%) or ADSL/DSL (21%). But despite the rise of people working from home and the wealth of knowledge available at the click of a mouse, the majority of people in our survey said they use the internet primarily for just two things: social media and watching streaming entertainment.

Of those that watch streaming programming, 92% have a Netflix subscription, well ahead of Lightbox, at 30%. In total, only 28% of respondents said they don’t watch any streaming TV – and going on the age breakdown of our respondents, it seems like it’s a figure that’s only going to diminish further. While over half (58%) of those over 70 said they never watch streaming TV, roughly the same number (57%) of those 18 to 29 said they watch all their shows and entertainment online!

Regardless of your monthly data limit, or how you choose to spend it, your choice of provider is key to accessing the most affordable and reliable service.

NOW has come a long way since its establishment in 2002, as a rural provider in Hawke’s Bay. Since then, it has grown into a nationwide company with offices across the country. So if you’re looking to change internet provider, based on Canstar Blue’s latest research into customer satisfaction, why not change … NOW!