AT&T’s pretty bad, but sadly so are the other carriers…
By Ronald O Carlson
Two seemingly contradictory wireless industry facts have been coexisting side-by-side for time: AT&T’s abysmal service reliability and customer service scores versus Sprint’s seemingly endless loss of subscribers. A new survey puts to rest which of these companies is worst.
Quoting a JD Powers and Associates survey, iPhone+ is running a piece on the relative demerits of America’s leading wireless carriers. Whereas AT&T’s legions of dissatisfied subscribers’ tantrums regularly grab headlines, it turns out the true black hole of wireless customer good will is actually Sprint-Nextel.
According to JD Powers’ survey of 12,000 wireless subscribers, Sprint garnered 704 out of 1,000 possible points versus the industry average of 735. Further, the leaders were found to be Alltel/Verizon, rated at 747 and Apple’s sole iPhone partner coming at 730 points.
“Alltel performs particularly well when contacts are resolved through customer visits to the retail store and automated response systems, while T-Mobile’s strength is in transferring customers from an to a live service representative,” reads the report. “Verizon Wireless performs well with regard to identifying customer problems quickly and resolving them efficiently with service representatives.”
What’s the difference between an orange?
Any spin aside, I think the real take away here is that on a massive 1,000 point scale the four carriers highlighted in the report are only separated by a measly 43 points or 4.3 percent. Further, none of these carriers managed to break 800 of 1,000 (ie 80%), which is generally considered to be an acceptable customer service score.
I suspect these results might be a little bit more palatable if US customers paid more reasonable rates (ie below international averages), but that’s not the case at all. In fact, mobile subscribers here in the land of milk and Honey Nut Cheerios pay among the highest monthly rates of any industrialized country—brilliant!
What’s your take?
See also:
— O2 to lose UK iPhone exclusivity, a reason for the rest of us to hope?
— FCC wants Apple, AT&T to explain Google Voice rejection …
— More testing yields more of the same: AT&T rots
— Apple says, ‘Yes, we know AT&T sucks. Here’s $30 for your trouble …
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August 16th, 2009
The problem is that, a long time ago, phone service in the US was a monopoly, (AT&T — Ma Bell). When the government broke up that monopoly, they did so incompetently, without allowing for true competition.
The government allowed the local bell companies to have exclusive monopolies over the land lines in their areas. The local Bell companies parlayed that monopoly into control over mobile phones. They froze out competing technologies and ISPs to shut out the competition and chose incompatible technologies and frequencies for mobile phones. Thus, they balkanized America.
Consequently, we have a worse condition than when we had one company as a monopoly as they do in Europe. The various local Bells can avoid blame by pointing fingers elsewhere and paying off government officials. This is the problem of state or crony capitalism in regulated markets. It is the fault of government controls which are subverted to harm the consumers. It is a classic case of how not to deregulate a market because it provides for no freedom or competition.
It would have been better if the government had given up any regulation for this business. That would have produced chaos as consumers were charged excessive rates for poor service. But this would have incited competition that would have eventually solved the problem. Half way measures do not work; they destroy the incentives to succeed. They bureaucratize businesses which never satisfy the customers needs.
August 18th, 2009
Okay so we all know AT&T is fairly bad but I’ve recently had an experience that made me wonder…
I had to phone CS for my teenage daughter’s Tracfone (we got them Tracfones to stop overspending and teach them some financial savvy) and it was actually very painless. Not a very long wait, friendly (if foreign accented) service rep and I got the problem sorted in no time.
Now I wonder how our ‘pricey’ carriers would compare to these bargain providers? Are we paying for something we’re not getting – like good customer service?