When Appropriate

Every suggestion box was put up by somebody, and whoever picked the spot had already decided what the suggestions would say. By the good coffee machine you collect one sort of note. By the fire exit you collect another.

In November 2025 Swoop's then chief executive accounted for the company's extraordinary run of five star reviews. There was a deliberate strategy, running since April 2024, of delivering the best service the company could and then, when appropriate, asking for a review.

Asked this month what had changed since August, the company said nothing material had. Which is true, and which rather settles it.

The same answer disclosed that the Group solicits on ProductReview and does not, to the same extent, on Google or Trustpilot. Moose Mobile holds 4.4 on the first and 1.3 on the last.

Thirty one months since the strategy began. Still nobody will say who gets asked.

On 4 November Swoop Holdings Limited answered ten questions in writing. All ten, to the deadline, in a document somebody had plainly worked on. Few companies do that. It is published in full at the foot of Fair Incentive.

It is a careful document. Participation is voluntary. The Group does not direct customers as to content, rating or sentiment. Feedback is welcome in any direction. Read at speed it is what a competent communications team produces on a deadline, and most readers would put it down satisfied.

Read beside what the company said a year ago, it is a good deal more useful than that.

The strategy nobody has counted

In November 2025 Hannah Wootton reported in Rear Window that Swoop's ProductReview page had gathered some nine hundred extra reviews since its August cache, a rise of more than forty per cent, well ahead of anything happening to the customer base. Alex West, then chief executive, denied paying for them.

What he offered instead is the part worth returning to. The jump reflected customer growth, and it reflected a deliberate strategy, in place since April 2024, of delivering the best service the company could and then, when appropriate, asking for a review.

Now set that against this month's response.

The Group did not implement a material change to its review solicitation practices during this period.

Both are true, and they fit together without a seam. Nothing material changed between August and October. The apparatus has been running since April 2024. What was a strategy a year ago is the furniture now.

In the thirty one months since, the company has published no figure for what that strategy has produced, on which listings, or through which channel. The board has put the resulting rating to shareholders twice.

A 4.8 went to the 2025 annual general meeting, as reported at the time, alongside a claim to be the country’s number one internet provider across major brands. Slide seven of the FY26 presentation carries a satisfaction figure off the Swoop Mobile listing, dated 12 August, five weeks into a migration. That listing stands at 4.7 today.

Neither slide mentioned the asking.