A Recap of HFN’s 2021 Community-Wide Survey
In January, Highlands Fiber Network (HFN) was excited to partner with Highlands Council in their 2021 community-wide survey. HFN had not conducted a community survey since 2013. At that time, HFN received an “above average” rating from 70% of survey respondents, with 38% giving HFN an “excellent” rating. In this year’s survey, I was excited to see if the community still felt satisfied with HFN and its services.
After reviewing the 2021 survey results, the HFN Board of Directors and I were thrilled to see 67% of respondents gave HFN a “satisfied” or “very satisfied” rating. In a report done by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, other internet service providers in our area roughly receive a satisfaction score of 55%-66%. We are pleased to see HFN with a higher score.
Roughly 5% of survey respondents said they were “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with HFN. Please know we took all the comments left for us to heart and hope we can lower this number dramatically in our next survey.
In the past year, HFN board members have discussed the future of HFN as they try to lay the groundwork for what comes next. HFN continues to strive to improve our network reliability, and we plan to continue to be an industry leader with our speed and price. The survey was the perfect opportunity to check in with the community on this topic. Are we on the right path, or is there something else we could do better to serve our community?
It was reassuring to see that “fast upload and download speeds” and “reliability of service” were the top two features of HFN’s service the community valued most. We were happy to see the “HFN being a community-owned organization” as the third most valued feature. We make every attempt to put the community first in every decision we make at HFN. We do not have to worry about reporting quarterly earnings to Wall Street and instead can make the decisions based on what is best for the community.
As we look toward the future of HFN, nearly 50% of respondents said they would be most interested in a speed higher than 1 GB. We plan to stay on the cutting-edge and are already preparing to be ready when the next speed level comes. In the survey, many respondents said they were interested in having an HFN technician available to help with home network and equipment issues and having an HFN-provided router/firewall option. We will continue to explore both possibilities in the coming months and years if the demand and interest are there.
Thank you to all who responded to this year’s community-wide survey. If you have any further suggestions or comments about HFN, please contact me.
Jeremy Fallt, HFN General Manager and Central Park Resident
