CASE: Zzoomm CEO: Customer experience above all

When the UK-based full fibre network operator Zzoomm replaced their 4x4 Wi-Fi 5 routers with powerful 8x8 Wi-Fi 6 routers, the goal was clear: Zzoomm wanted to provide nothing but the best customer experience.

In early 2023, the UK-based network operator Zzoomm shifted from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6 routers from Icotera.

Now, with a year of Wi-Fi 6 experience, Matthew Hare, Chief Executive and Founder of Zzoomm, elaborates on the rationale behind the decision and what the shift has meant for the business.

It wasn’t a question of if we wanted to upgrade to Wi-Fi 6; offering a good Wi-Fi experience is at the heart of our strategy and the shift to Wi-Fi 6 was an important part of delivering on that, says Matthew Hare.        

For the CEO, being able to deliver an outstanding Wi-Fi experience is key to being competitive in the UK fibre broadband market. It’s all about happy customers, Matthew Hare says. But there’s also something of a paradox: when it comes to Wi-Fi, the best customer experiences are those that customers don’t even notice:

The funny thing about Wi-Fi is you don’t want to think about it, it just has to work. People expect their Wi-Fi to be good and the reality is that, with the Wi-Fi 6 router from Icotera, we can deliver exactly that, Matthew Hare says.

“Proportionally, we get remarkably fewer incoming calls after switching to Icotera’s Wi-Fi 6 router and we can see that we spend far fewer resources on support calls. Our customers are happy. The goal was to deliver good customer experiences and we’ve managed to achieve this" – Matthew Hare, Chief Executive and Founder of Zzoomm

In the always-online culture we have today customers are deeply dependent on fast and stable Wi-Fi in every corner of their home. Meeting those needs can be hard for service providers using 2x2 routers, simply because those routers are not powerful enough to do the job.

Matthew Hare also stresses the importance of high-end routers to deliver premium customer experiences:

Today, families are online constantly, with dozens of devices requiring broadband at the same time. It’s our job to make sure that the service we deliver meets those needs. With the Wi-Fi 6 router from Icotera, we can deliver a seamless experience due to the way the router moves devices between different channels and divides power throughout the home, Matthew Hare explains.

Powerful 8x8 router reduces support calls:

Every service provider knows that when the in-home Wi-Fi scatters, that’s when trouble starts and customers overload the support desk with phone calls. This can be resource-intensive and worse, it can damage customer loyalty.

Since the shift to Wi-Fi 6, Zzoomm has significantly reduced the number of support calls from customers struggling with their Wi-Fi:

Proportionally, we get remarkably fewer incoming calls after switching to Icotera’s Wi-Fi 6 router and we can see that we spend far fewer resources on support calls. Customers don’t want to call their provider, they only do so when they’re experiencing problems.

Our customers are happy. The goal was to deliver good customer experiences and we’ve managed to achieve this, the CEO stresses and adds:

Of course, there will always be people having an old smartphone that’s hard to connect, but the reality is that we see almost no complaints about Wi-Fi experiences after switching to Icotera’s 8x8 Wi-Fi 6 routers.

“Look us up on Trustpilot”

The fact that Zzoomm’s customers are happy Wi-Fi users stands out in black-on-white when scrolling down the Zzoomm reviews on Trustpilot. For a company that has been growing by ten percent every month for the past year, the “worth-of-mouth” effect of satisfied Wi-Fi customers is crucial:

We can tell from our Trustpilot reviews that our customers are more satisfied now than before the shift to Icotera’s Wi-Fi 6 router. Trustpilot is how end-users validate the service provider they’re planning on moving to, so it’s very important in terms of getting validation. We can honestly and proudly advise potential customers to look at what other customers are saying on Trustpilot, Matthew Hare says and adds that nine out of ten customers don’t leave Zzoomm and the ones that do are, in most cases, because they are moving to a new house where Zzoomm don’t provide internet services.

Eliminate the need for access points:

A premium 8x8 Wi-Fi 6 router which has eight antennas for transmitting and eight antennas for receiving, delivers a powerful solution ensuring Wi-Fi coverage throughout the entire home because all antennas work independently to increase the throughput for nearby devices.

This means that most homes can be covered by just one router, thereby reducing the need to add Wi-Fi extenders to the home, with unnecessary complexity and additional cost.  

Today, the industry level is +50 percent in terms of how many households that need additional access points. But Zzoomm has almost eliminated the need for access points:

With a powerful router such as Icotera’s Wi-Fi 6 router, we can cover a typical three-bedroom house with the router itself. This means that more than 95 percent of our customers’ homes are good without extenders. This has significantly changed since we shifted to Wi-Fi 6. When we were still offering Wi-Fi 5, the ratio of AP to router deployment was higher. Now we can provide better services to customers for the same cost, the CEO ends.

WANT TO KNOW MORE about the Icotera high performance 8x8 Wi-Fi 6 router?
Feel free to contact SVP Sales, Erik Søe-Pedersen, at esp@icotera.com.