J.D. Power: T-Mobile, Verizon Above Average In Customer Experience

J.D. Power and Associates reports that T-Mobile ranks highest in customer satisfaction for a fifth consecutive year among major wireless carrier-owned retail stores, followed by Verizon Wireless, both of which beat the industry average.

The 2007 Wireless Retail Satisfaction Study of 7,276 wireless users nationwide who conducted a wireless retail transaction over the past six months polled customer satisfaction on four factors and rated it on a basis of an 1,000-point scale: sales staff, store display, store facility and price/promotion.

T-Mobile scored 737 points, followed by Verizon Wireless with 726 points. The industry average was 716 points, which was immediately followed by Alltel at 714 points. AT&T came in at 708 points, and Sprint Nextel was at the bottom of the list with 608 points.

"Carriers that score higher on customer satisfaction tend to have shorter wait times," Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and Associates, told Marketing Daily.

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J.D. Power and Associates reports that while the average wait time before customers are greeted after they first enter a wireless store is approximately five minutes, overall satisfaction declines if the wait time exceeds 30 seconds.

"Our research suggests that the most critical portion of customer service expectations occurs when a customer first enters the store," Parsons says. "All you need to do is acknowledge the customers. Once you do that, you can set the proper expectations of how long it will take to speak to someone who is qualified to help them. Once you do that and come through on it, customer satisfaction goes through the roof."

Second-place scorer Verizon Wireless has made overtures to improve customers' initial experience in its stores by installing the Verizon navigator system. "These are kiosks within their stores from which customers can get general information that they previously would've had to wait for a sales rep's attention for," Parsons explains. "By automating the informational part of the sales transaction, they're speeding up the wait time and that helps improve customer satisfaction."

Wireless carriers need to be constantly aware of how to improve their customer satisfaction, especially now as they face so much competition from big-box retailers like Best Buy, Circuit City and Radio Shack, who have recognized how lucrative the wireless business is and are putting a lot of money behind making sure customers get good wireless retail experiences, Parsons says.

"Over the past six to nine months, the big-box retailers have really stepped up their wireless sections, realizing it's such a profitable part of their stores. They already get more foot traffic [than wireless carrier stores do] and they've made better trained staff available," Parsons notes.

But to keep pace with the competition, Verizon Wireless has installed its own trained sales staff in Circuit City Stores, while AT&T has opened its own retail superstores.

The best advice for wireless carriers, Parsons says, is to be conscious of the differences between the physical environment between a wireless carrier's store and a big box retailer.

"It's a different environment--the physical space itself and the environment inside in a Best Buy versus a Verizon Wireless, but there are things that some of the carriers are doing right to manage the flow of the customers coming in and to make sure they are setting the right expectations."

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