ITV, Sky, the Telegraph, Times and Emap fared particularly badly - although the digital arms of Channel 4 and The Guardian did go some way to rescuing the reputation of traditional media.
It has almost become a cliche that service in digital ad sales is appalling and, at the time, the consensus was that the research was a "good thing" and could only stimulate an improvement in service in the long run.
In fact, the overall standard has gone down. Some of those that performed badly last time, such as Emap and, to a lesser extent, the Telegraph and Times, have started to get their act together. AOL has also improved substantially, and now tops the survey list for customer service. But Channel 4 has dropped 10% and ITV is still languishing, with a paltry 32% customer satisfaction level (down from 33% last time), despite a serious amount of investment in its digital sales operation. This time, social networks have been included for the first time, and their performance also leaves a significant amount to be desired, especially that of Facebook and YouTube, with the latter propping up the whole table.
In search, Google maintained its market-leading position, but Yahoo!'s customer service appears to have taken a nosedive, apparently due to teething problems with the introduction of its new Panama search platform.
The full survey will warrant close examination from all the 24 digital media owners, pureplays and ad networks surveyed (it will be available online from www.ipa.co.uk later this week), because it underlines, in stark terms, the amount of pro- gress that still has to be made with digital customer service.
Six months may not be that long a period within which to expect significant improvements, but AOL and Emap have managed to up their game, so is it unreasonable to expect others to follow suit? In fact, many operators seem to have rested on their laurels or ignored the warning signs completely.
At the moment, the overall conclusion has to be: class dismissed - must do better.
- Steve Barrett is editor of Media Week, steve.barrett@haymarket.com.