The Customer Satisfaction Battle: A Nice Surprise.

[BergerKing]

Sprint overcomes their oft-maligned customer service battle. Definitely not ready to lie down and quit.

Customer satisfaction with AT&T, T-Mobile drops

NEW YORK (AP) - Sprint Nextel Corp., once dead last in customer satisfaction among the Big 4 national wireless carriers, now has the happiest subscribers, along with long-time leader Verizon Wireless, according to a survey released Tuesday.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index also shows tentative declines in customer satisfaction at the other two big carriers, AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA. That comes as AT&T has agreed to buy T-Mobile USA for $39 billion in a deal that could close next year.

The acquisition could make AT&T and T-Mobile customers even less happy. Claes Fornell, professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan and the designer of the ACSI survey, said it is common to find that customer satisfaction drops after a merger.

Cellphone-company mergers bring struggles to combine billing systems, customer support and other functions. Snags can frustrate consumers. One reason Sprint had the worst score in the industry for many years was its disastrous merger with Nextel in 2005.

Sprint and Verizon Wireless both rate a 72 for customer satisfaction in the ACSI survey, which polled 8,000 households in the first quarter. For Sprint, that's a big jump from a score of 56 three years ago, while Verizon's score has been steady. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has made improvements in customer service a centerpiece of his turnaround plan for the troubled company.

Sprint's score includes subsidiaries Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile, which sell plans without two-year contracts.

ACSI gave AT&T a score of 66, down from 69 last year. It's the company's worst score since 2006, the year before it started carrying the iPhone. It's the lowest-ranked of the four national carriers after being surpassed by Sprint last year.

T-Mobile's score was 70, down from 73 points last year.

Both declines are within the survey's three-point margin of error. T-Mobile's score is also within the margin of error of Sprint's and Verizon Wireless' scores.

T-Mobile's financial statements also hint that subscribers are unhappy, since they show an increase in "churn," or the percentage of subscribers leaving every month. It's the smallest of the four national carriers, and part of the reason it's selling itself to AT&T is that it's finding it hard to compete with the bigger ones.

AT&T customers, on the other hand, are more loyal than their low satisfaction score suggests, and have shown only a slight increase in their propensity to leave.

The very happiest wireless subscribers are those who get their service from smaller carriers like TracFone Wireless Inc. and U.S. Cellular Corp., according to ACSI. That category scored a 77 in the survey.

The survey was developed by the University of Michigan but is now run by a private company, ACSI LLC.

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[papped]

I think part of the problem is the stigma against large carriers in general... So people think small carriers = mom + pop style company.

I can see the customer support calls possibly being less annoying (tiered CS from large carriers), but when you have hundreds of millions of customers you can't run your call center the same way some company with say 100,000 customers does...

The AT&T part isn't as much of a surprise. As much as people ***** they have not been leaving in masses for other carriers. Even when VZ got the iphone it mostly just cannibalized other VZ sales.

[Thuoudo]

A (former) friend had Sprint back in 2006 or so, and all of us were committed to avoid Sprint like we would a contagious disease outbreak. Billing and customer service were the exact opposite of what a good provider has (shut service down a day or three before the bill was due, every month...had to go into the store to fix it, every time).

I've been with Boost for almost a year now and it's great; a complete transformation. They even refunded me when they double charged my account once without any hassles--just a transfer to the billing department. On prepaid, mind you, and it was only my second month of service!

US Cellular does have incredible CS, however. It's the best I've dealt with, Boost in second, ATT in third. The two knocks against Boost are that some CSRs aren't really versed in manually programming phones (to put Sprint-branded phones on Boost), and worst of all is the number-pressing maze when you call the 866 number. I can't stand it, especially if you just need to talk to a person.

Very happy with Sprint service overall

[cherimoya]

The iphone cannibalized ATT bandwidth, the network suffers, people blame the att network vs the iphone users/ poor planning to meet the demand vs not the network itself. now verizon is next into the ring, and we'll soon discover how their network fares, and how their customers react if their network gets sluggish.
i never could figure out all the sprint bashing - we've been customers for years and years... so have many others we know. we know people who have switched carriers because of coverage issues in areas they travel to frequently, bec their companies got better deals for employees with other carriers, or bec they found a better plan for them cost-wise with a competitor, but haven't personally met anyone with a Sprint horror story. For us personally, the only area in which Sprint falls down hasn't changed with hesse's regime; and that is that whenever there is a plan change, it takes a few frustrating billing cycles to get the $ / discounts ironed out. BUT... eventually, Sprint Billing gets it right, and then we have an excellent plan at a good price, excellent coverage... and no further issues until the first bill after the next plan change.

[GrumpyOldMan2112]

Been a very happy Sprint customer for years
CS has always been great

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[darkangel07760]

Originally Posted by Thuoudo

A (former) friend had Sprint back in 2006 or so, and all of us were committed to avoid Sprint like we would a contagious disease outbreak. Billing and customer service were the exact opposite of what a good provider has (shut service down a day or three before the bill was due, every month...had to go into the store to fix it, every time).

I've been with Boost for almost a year now and it's great; a complete transformation. They even refunded me when they double charged my account once without any hassles--just a transfer to the billing department. On prepaid, mind you, and it was only my second month of service!

US Cellular does have incredible CS, however. It's the best I've dealt with, Boost in second, ATT in third. The two knocks against Boost are that some CSRs aren't really versed in manually programming phones (to put Sprint-branded phones on Boost), and worst of all is the number-pressing maze when you call the 866 number. I can't stand it, especially if you just need to talk to a person.

Very happy with Sprint service overall

I don't mean to turn the discussion here, but I am curious... if I were to switch to Bost once my contract with Sprint ended, are you saying that I might have a chance of them reprogramming my Style so that it can be used with Boost?

[lax42]

I've had good customer service with them but at the end of every call they always ask me to say good things about them in the I guess review call about the customer service lol

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[Thuoudo]

Originally Posted by darkangel07760

I don't mean to turn the discussion here, but I am curious... if I were to switch to Bost once my contract with Sprint ended, are you saying that I might have a chance of them reprogramming my Style so that it can be used with Boost?

Unfortunately, no The Tour is the newest Sprint BB you can use...