Much to the utmost glee of cable operators, J.D. Power and Associates has just released an astonishing survey of customer satisfaction with telephone service providers — and cable’s VoIP service comes out shining. Cable tops the list of phone service satisfaction in five of six U.S. regions and only one phone company — Verizon — ranks highest in any region.
While Cox has long offered telephony services, and has repeatedly rated high on J.D. Powers annual satisfaction survey, two newcomers — Brighthouse Networks and Time Warner Cable (the two companies share operational duties for high-speed and voice services) — ranked highest in two regions.
That’s not the surprising part — the unexpected finding is how much customer satisfaction territory the telcos have lost.
The study finds customer satisfaction in the telephone industry continues to decline. Overall, satisfaction index scores have dropped from 692 (on a 1,000-point scale) in 2005 to 670 in 2006. Satisfaction has fallen in all six factor areas measured in the study, dropping most significantly in the areas of customer service, image and billing. The other areas measured are performance and reliability, cost of service, and offerings and promotions.
This is a definite reversal for the phone companies. I was involved for many years in annual public opinion “image” surveys of communications providers. Year after year the phone companies outstripped, usually by wide margins, cable operators according to virtually every key measures of performance and customer perception. Now, however, with competition sinking in, and mergers disrupting their usual way of life, the phone companies are apparently, if not asleep, then drowsy, at the customer service switch.
Cynthia Brumfield at 3:48 PM|Comments(0)
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