• by Aaron Baar , August 14, 2009

Good news for the wireless industry: Customer care satisfaction has improved -- with consumers reporting shorter hold times and improved rates of problem resolution on the first contact, according to J.D. Power and Associates.

According to the research company, overall customer care performance is up 12 points to 735 (on a 1,000-point scale) compared with a similar wave of the study released in February 2009. More than three-quarters (76%) of customer service calls were solved on first contact (compared with 66% six months ago), and hold times are down nearly a minute compared with February.

Much of the industry's overall improvement comes from the improvement of one company, Sprint Nextel, says Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and Associates. Although Sprint Nextel's overall customer care score was the lowest at 704, it's much higher than it had been in the past. "This time last year, they were light years away from everyone else," Parsons tells Marketing Daily. (In the February study, Sprint Nextel's score was 657.)

Alltel, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless tied with the highest score -- 747 -- for individual companies when it came to customer care performance. AT&T's score was only slightly below the industry average at 730.

"The fact of the matter is that even the low performers in the past have improved; therefore, it raises all boats," Parsons says. "It's so competitive. The gap between the high performer and the lower performer is shrinking. At the bottom line, that's better for the customer overall."

Among the top three companies, each had different strengths. Alltel performed well when consumers visited the retail store (and through an automated response system), while T-Mobile performed well transferring customers to live service representatives when needed. Verizon performed well by identifying customer problems quickly and resolving them efficiently.

The stakes for improving customer care can be particularly high, Parsons says. Among customers who have to contact their wireless provider two or three times to resolve an issue, 17% say they are likely to switch carriers in the future. Comparatively, only 10% of those who have their issue resolved with one call are likely to switch.

"That's a lot of folks that you can potentially save," Parsons says. "Particularly when you consider that everyone is trying to steal share from everyone else."