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Executive Summary

While spontaneous awareness of DQ providers/numbers has fallen overall, it has increased amongst DQ users. Prompted awareness is unchanged

• Overall, spontaneous awareness of DQ providers fell from 60% in April to 53% in November.
• However, spontaneous awareness has increased amongst users of DQ services (up from 75% to 82%)
• Levels of prompted awareness remain unchanged (around seven in ten UK adults recognise at least one DQ number when prompted)
• The highest level of total awareness (spontaneous and prompted) for an individual provider is for 118 118 The Number (51%), followed by 192 (34%) and 118 500 BT (25%).
• All other DQ providers are mentioned by 10% or less of respondents.

Self reported use of DQ services continues to decline

• In May 2002 (seven months before liberalisation took place), self-reported use of DQ services was 69%. This had fallen slightly, to 66%, in October 2003. However, since then, the fall in DQ usage appears to have accelerated, falling nine percentage points to 57% in April 2004 and a further nine percentage points, to 48%, in November 2004 .

Most consumers say that they are using one of two DQ providers - either The Number or BT - with advertising and ease of remembering the number being the key drivers of choice

• Over nine out of ten consumers only use one DQ number.
• The Number's 118 118 (41%) and BT's 118 500 (26%) are the two most commonly used DQ providers.
• Most consumers (62%) are satisfied with their chosen provider. A minority (12%) are dissatisfied.
• Mobile customers are more satisfied than fixed customers (77% and 62%).
• BT 118 500 landline users are more satisfied than landline users of The Number's 118 118 (Fixed line: 73% vs 62%)
• The main reasons mentioned for using a particular DQ provider are:
• advertising recall (24%)
• ease of remembering the number (17%)
• perception that the number used was the new BT service (17%)
• it is the only known service (16%)
• The service provision itself is a secondary consideration:
• cheap (3%)
• the best (4%)
• accurate (2%)

Accuracy of 118 DQ services broadly unchanged

• Levels of ‘specific accuracy’ and ‘general accuracy’ for DQ services remain broadly at the same level as April. ‘Specific accuracy’ is 86% in November vs 87% in April 2004 and ‘general accuracy’ levels are slightly higher at 88% in November versus 89% in April.
• Five DQ services have improved since April - one is showing indications of a decline in accuracy, the remaining 24 are stable.
• The highest levels of this measure of accuracy were registered by the two Welsh language services (118 888 Welsh and 118 404 BT Welsh) at 98% and 96% respectively.
• The biggest fall in accuracy is recorded by 118 500 (BT), down 10 points from 93% to 83% between April and November.
• The DQ services providing the best value for money i.e. those with the highest levels of overall accuracy and having the lowest call charges (taking into account the call length) are 118 848 (Conduit) and 118 355 (11 88 66 Ltd).

DQ prices - a significant minority of consumers do not know what they are being charged, just over half are aware that prices vary between DQ providers

• 41% of fixed line DQ users do not know what their chosen DQ provider charges to provide a UK telephone number.
• Among those that mention a price, the average is 48p - close to the actual weighted average price of 50p.
• Just over a half of UK adults are aware that prices vary between DQ providers, and just over a third that some DQ providers offer different services to others - unchanged since April 2004.

Of the additional services provided, none show growth in self-reported usage but consumers do show more potential interest in future usage of these

• Almost half (46%) of consumers are aware of DQ providers offering additional services (a small but steady increase since April 2004 - 41%). The highest levels of awareness are for text-back and call connect (24% each - little change since April 04).
• Awareness of text-back is significantly higher amongst those who use their mobile to call a DQ provider (73%).
• Awareness of other services remains low in comparison.
• Text-back (used by 12% of mobile users) and call connect (6%) are the most frequently used additional services.
• Consumers do not have a good understanding of the costs associated with these additional services, e.g. one in ten consumers is aware that text-back is free.
• However, use of these services in the future shows potential for growth with 17% of UK adults saying they are likely to use text-back in the next 12 months, broadly similar to April 2004 (20%). Likelihood to use call connect in the future currently stands at 15% of UK adults and remains unchanged since April 2004.

A third of consumers say they would use information comparing DQ services

• Those likely to use such information said they would like to get the information in the following ways:
• phone book (34%)
• the internet (25%)
• leaflet - either generally or with a phone bill (20%)
• Ofcom/ICSTIS/Regulator is mentioned by a small proportion (2%)
• Younger consumers and AB social grades are the most likely users of this information.

Usage of 118 - consumers say they are using 118 less frequently than 192 mainly because of “cost”. Around one in five of those using DQ services less, thought 192 used to be free

• An increasing number of consumers are saying that they use 118 DQ services less frequently than 192 (35% in November vs 26% in April). 1% say they are using DQ services more frequently.
• Those who say they are using DQ services less frequently/not at all say it is because of the following reasons:
• “cost”, including those saying the new services are too expensive (51%)
• they thought the 192 service used to be free (19%)
• they have difficulty in remembering the new numbers (16%)
• For these consumers, other sources of information have become more popular:
• phone book (67%)
• the internet (20% - including 14% using it generally to find telephone numbers and 7% using specialist on-line directory enquiry services)
• personal records (11%)
• Most (84%) are satisfied with their alternative source of information.

Consumers perceive 118 to be more expensive on average than 192

• 118 numbers are perceived to be more costly per call than 192 (57% fixed line users/44% mobile users), especially in the case of fixed line calls. This is in part driven by a perception amongst consumers of calls to 192 being cheaper than they actually were (perceived cost to call 192 being 30p compared to the actual cost of 40p).

Average perceived cost to call…
	118	192
Fixed line	48p	30p
Mobile phone	59p	57p
Actual average weighted price from fixed line on the BT network	50p	40p

Consumers’ general opinion on DQ liberalisation is mixed - while a large minority can see benefits to competition, the majority do not find a benefit in level of choice provided and/or find the level of choice confusing

• A choice of DQ providers is not seen as a benefit by most consumers as they only use one number (66%). Two-thirds of consumers agree with the statement ‘I do/will only call one number for directory enquiries, so having a wide choice of numbers and 118 directory enquiry services is not important to me’.
• Almost seven in ten say they find the level of choice in the DQ market confusing.
• On the other hand around four in ten agree that competition in DQ will lead to a driving down of costs and to improvements in the quality of services provided and one in four agrees that the extra services will be really useful to them.

The full document is available below



• Evaluation of Directory Enquiry Services [pdf]
  Full print version



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