Amid a tight labor market still navigating the fallout from the global pandemic, staff turnover in wireless retail stores and customer service channels is having a noticeable impact on customer satisfaction, according to a new survey from JD Power.
“Longer wait times, lack of representative knowledge and less concern for the customer’s needs are causing a decline in satisfaction,” the firm concluded.
“Wireless carriers are continuing to build award-winning customer care representatives in the aftermath of the pandemic,” said Ian Greenblatt, managing director at J.D. Power. “However, the process does take time—both to find the right people and to prepare them with training, knowledge and empathy. We’re seeing this in satisfaction scores for assisted wireless customer care, which is lower among store, phone and website channels in this volume of the study versus the most recent.”
The survey is the second volume of JD Power’s 2022 U.S. Wireless Customer Care Study, based on customer responses from nearly 16,000 customers who contacted their carrier’s customer care channels within the past three months; it was conducted during January through June of this year.
T-Mobile US ranked the highest among mobile network operators with a score of 816 out of 1,000, significantly outscoring Verizon (784) and AT&T (782). Among MVNOs, Cricket and Metro by T-Mobile were ranked the highest by consumers, and Consumer Cellular ranked highest in the “value” MVNO category.
Comparatively, T-Mo earned a score of 823 in the most recent previous edition of the customer satisfaction survey, Verizon scored 796 and AT&T scored 783.
More details from JD Power available here.
