ACSI: TracFone, regional carriers rank higher in customer satisfaction
than Verizon, AT&T
*June 1, 2015 **
**
**By Phil Goldstein**
**FierceWireless.com*
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/acsi-tracfone-regional-carriers-rank-higher-customer-satisfaction-verizon-a/2015-06-01
América Móvil's U.S. MVNO, TracFone Wireless scored the highest in terms
of customer satisfaction among U.S. wireless carriers in the latest
survey from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
Wireless carriers overall saw a drop in customer satisfaction in 2015
from the 2014 reading, dropping 2.8 percent down to a ranking of 70 from
a near 73 ranking last year, on a scale of 0-100. The study noted that
consumers generally prefer wireless carriers to cable companies and
wired ISPs, but that wireless operators ranked among low-scoring
industries in ACSI's survey, along with health insurance companies,
airlines and social media websites.
David VanAmburg, managing director of ACSI, said that the wireless
industry is struggling to keep pace with consumers' expectations for
network coverage, reliability and data speeds. "The industry's tendency
is to put out all the cool stuff and then have to play catch up with the
infrastructure behind it," he said.
"It's not an unusual phenomenon in technology," he added. "People want
more, faster."
TracFone scored a 77 on the scale (and was not measured last year),
while Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ
<http://www.fiercewireless.com/tags/Verizon>) fell to 71 from 75 in 2014.
Interestingly, the ACSI report concluded that outside of Verizon, AT&T
Mobility (NYSE: T <http://www.fiercewireless.com/tags/att-0>), Sprint
(NYSE: S <http://www.fiercewireless.com/tags/Sprint>), T-Mobile US
(NYSE:TMUS <http://www.fiercewireless.com/tags/t-mobile-usa-0>),
customers actually preferred smaller, regional carriers like U.S.
Cellular (NYSE:USM <http://www.fiercewireless.com/tags/u-s-cellular-0>),
C Spire Wireless and nTelos Wireless. The category of "all others" had
an aggregate score of 79 on the 0-100 scale, up from 78 in 2014. Those
carriers tend to have cheaper rate plans and fewer fees, which wins them
points with consumers, ACSI said. Regional carriers also have fewer
customers to tend to in customer care.
AT&T and T-Mobile tied at 70, and were up marginally from last year when
AT&T had a score of 68 and T-Mobile had a 69. Sprint came in last, with
a score of 65, down from 68 in 2014. Sprint has been working to improve
its network and expand LTE coverage following disruptions in service as
it modernized its network. More recently, Sprint launched its "Direct 2
You" program, which will send fleets of Sprint-trained employees to
customers' homes and office to help them set up their smartphones.
While wireless carriers have been busy expanding their LTE networks and
improving speeds, consumers reported no significant improvement in the
range of voice and data plans available to them in 2015 compared to
2014, according to the survey.
In terms of other wireless customer experience benchmarks, the ACSI
survey found customers gave call centers a rating of 70, up from 66 last
year. The courtesy and helpfulness of in-store staff received a rating
of 80, up marginally from 79 last year. However, the rating of network
coverage fell to 76 in 2015 from 79 last year, and the ease of
understand a bill fell to 75 from 79.
The ACSI is an independent national measure of customer satisfaction
with the quality of products and services available to household
consumers in the United States. Each year, the ASCI surveys around
70,000 customers about the products and services they use the most. The
data serve as inputs to an econometric model that benchmarks customer
satisfaction with more than 300 companies, 43 industries and 10 economic
sectors, as well as more than 100 services, programs, and websites of
federal government agencies.
For more:
- see this ACSI report
<http://www.theacsi.org/news-and-resources/customer-satisfaction-reports/reports-2015/acsi-telecommunications-and-information-report-2015>
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