Verizon Wireless beat out the rest of the industry in serving business customers, landing at the top of J.D. Power and Associates’ second annual survey of business wireless satisfaction.
Verizon Wireless had an index ranking of 711 on a 1,000-point scale and had “particularly high ratings from business customers for performance and reliability, call quality, company image and customer service,” J.D. Power noted. T-Mobile USA Inc. landed in second place with an index rating of 698 and performed well in billing, offerings and promotions, and cost of service.
The industry averaged a satisfaction rating of 679, with Cingular Wireless L.L.C., Alltel Corp. and Sprint Nextel Corp. falling below that average. Cingular and Alltel were within one point of each other at 673 and 672, respectively. Sprint Nextel had the lowest satisfaction among business customers, with an index rating of 651.
The survey showed that about 90 percent of the 2,725 businesses surveyed had a voice-calling plan and 52 percent had a data plan allowing functions such as e-mail, text messaging and Web browsing. More than 20 percent of businesses had access to international roaming, 19 percent utilized push-to-talk, and just 9 percent had data service that required a PC card.
According to J.D. Power, business customers with a single point of customer service contact were almost 10 percent more satisfied than those without; were less likely to switch providers; and had 58 percent of their problems solved in the first contact attempt, vs. 47 percent of customers without a dedicated contact.
“Since future switching levels are significantly higher among customers who do not have a dedicated access channel, the challenge for wireless providers is to provide access to contact channels that can offer a speedy and efficient response time for their customers,” said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and Associates.
