T-Mobile still tops in customer service

J.D. Power & Associates released their biannual customer service survey for the wireless industry, and for the sixth straight time T-Mobile is on top. The survey sites that they “keep customers waiting less time on the phone and in stores.” We’re not overly impressed with their coverage map, but it’s always nice to see quality customer service in an industry that is infamously bad at it. A further development is that AT&T has risen from fourth to second in this survey, passing both Alltel and Verizon, defeating the latter by a single point. Of course, Sprint finished last.

“[AT&T is] finally catching up with all the merger issues, particularly the back-office issues,” such as using the same software to access customer information, said Kirk Parsons, J.D. Power’s senior director of wireless services. AT&T accessed customer information more quickly when handling service problems over the phone and in stores, Parsons said.

From hearing many first-hand accounts of AT&T service, we don’t see this as being true. Most people we’ve talked to complain endlessly about the company. Heck, just yesterday we talked about an issue over rebate cards. So maybe the service has improved, but we still don’t consider surveys like this to be science. [Inside Bay Area]]]>