Wireless customer satisfaction declines when problems aren’t resolved upon first phone contact with their carrier, and 23% had that experience in 2013, six percentage points more than in 2011, according to J.D. Power & Associates.
Satisfaction among full-service wireless customers whose issues are resolved during a single phone call was 846 on a 1,000-point scale. That declined to 662 when it took two or more calls to resolve them, according to the J.D. Power 2014 U.S. Wireless Customer Care Full-Service Performance Study – Vol. 1 and U.S. Wireless Customer Care Non-Contract Performance Study – Vol. 1.
AT&T ranked highest in wireless customer care performance among full-service wireless service providers, according to J.D. Power’s assessment. MetroPCS ranked highest among non-contract carriers.
Other highlights of the reports include:
- When customer service hold times are less than 5 minutes, overall customer care satisfaction is 843, compared with 603 when hold times are 15 minutes or longer.
- The likelihood of full-service wireless customers switching carriers increases from 16 percent when their service call lasts less than 5 minutes to 30 percent when their call lasts 15 minutes or more.
- Less than one-fifth (17%) of full-service wireless customers indicate that their most recent customer service inquiry was resolved in 5 minutes or less, while 20 percent indicate that resolution took 25 minutes or more.
- Satisfaction among full-service wireless customers whose problem is resolved by a representative over the phone in less than 5 minutes is 881. Satisfaction among those full-service wireless customers who experience calls in excess of 25 minutes declines to 604.
- More than one-fourth (26%) of the re-contact calls lasting more than 25 minutes are the result of a previous customer contact that was not resolved either by visiting a retailer or carrier website.
“It’s imperative that wireless service carriers improve their ability to resolve customer issues in one contact and reduce the number of service channels customers need to visit to address their problem,” J.D. Power senior director of telecommunications Kirk Parsons was quoted in a press release. “Keeping the service call to five minutes or less may reduce overall call volume to the carrier, thereby improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.”
