Written by Mary Lennighan
Hyperoptic now has 300,000 fibre broadband customers in the UK, a milestone it announced just hours after Community Fibre declared that its network now covers over 1 million homes.
Hyperoptic said its network now passes more than 1.4 million homes in 64 towns and cities across the UK. The new figures put it closer to its goal of reaching half a million customers from 2 million homes passed.
The operator reiterated that target in its announcement without sharing a date, a move that always leads to a bit of digging. The company has previously disclosed that it aims to reach the 2 million mark – in coverage terms – by the end of this year, so one can’t help but wonder why the end-2023 part is now missing. But maybe that’s reading too far between the lines.
The operator is keen to use its latest customer milestone as a platform on which to position itself as a customer experience champion, something that has always been core to its strategy, to be fair. Hyperoptic unveiled a new brand campaign a month ago, dubbed In Your Corner, and accompanied the launch with a raft of statistics designed to show just how dissatisfied UK broadband customers are with their current providers.
According to Hyperoptic’s research, almost 30% of UK consumers feel dread or frustration at the mere thought of trying to get hold of a real person at their broadband company. Nearly 40% of those unhappy with the service they are receiving said it was difficult to speak to an actual person and similar number said they were passed from pillar to post when they did get through. However, there’s a lot of inertia when it comes to switching, with only 5% of those customers saying they were in the process of moving provider and 23% having never switched provider.
