Thursday, September 11, 2008

T-Mobile has best website

Benchmarking company Global Reviews finds T-Mobile's website rates best for customer satisfaction among all UK network operators

T-Mobile has come top of an independent customer poll of mobile networks' websites.

Independent benchmarking company Global Reviews asked more than 1,000 web customers for their views of the UK networks' websites. It assessed sites against more than 500 criteria, including content and usability.

While all the networks' sites increased their scores for online customer satisfaction since the last tally in January, T-mobile came first with 68 per cent, while 3 was last with 53 per cent.

Networks scored well compared with other sectors. Their average was 60 per cent, 20 per cent higher than the hotel sector and 12 per cent better than credit card websites.

A Global Reviews spokeswoman said: "T-Mobile received high scores in almost all categories and a significant improvement in site utility. But it improved just one per cent since January and others are gaining."

"Orange improved nine per cent, O2 five, 3 by four and Virgin Mobile three. Overall the industry average is up by seven per cent."

On Orange, she said: "It made big improvements across the board and its score for customer support online has increased from 45 to 61 per cent."

Despite coming last, 3 Mobile also made strides forward. The spokesperson added: "3 is catching up fast."

"It saw a 15 per cent increase in the quality of its content and tools score, nine per cent in customer support and six per cent in the process. Site utility is the next areas it needs to focus on."

Vodafone increased its score but only made it to third place, while O2 came fourth. Virgin came fifth but was one of the most improved sites.

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Should I go for an embedded 3G laptop?

Everyone's excited about the recent announcement that the new Dell Mini 9 netbook that will come with Vodafone 3G mobile broadband built-in.

But, should you opt for a 3G-embedded notebooks at all?

In our view, the simple fact of the matter is that (for now) it makes no economic sense to include a 3G module and antenna in a PC unless it's definitely going to be used for a mobile subscription. Otherwise it's just a costly lump of extra electronics - not ideal for consumer or retailer - which would hurt the competitiveness of the PC in the marketplace.

At the top end of the market laptop, 3G might start to become a standard feature in the not too distant future, but if you're trying to sell a £200 low-end netbook with £25 worth of unused electronics inside, it won't make your gross margin look very pretty.

Add to this the fact that you can't then use your 3G SIM in another PC, then you're effectively limiting yourself to mobile broadband access on your netbook. One of the great selling points of mobile broadband via a dongle is that you can use it on any PC.

For us it's a no-brainer at the moment...dongle every time!

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