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Customer Care and Sales Force Drive Satisfaction Levels among Mobile Broadband Customers: Survey

By Rajani Baburajan
TMCnet Contributor

J.D. Power and Associates’ “2011 U.S. Business Wireless Satisfaction Study” finds that small/ medium segment business customers with access to high-speed mobile broadband connections are more satisfied with their wireless service overall than are customers without broadband connections.

Satisfaction among small/medium segment mobile broadband customers averages 682 on a 1,000-point scale, compared with 643 among non-broadband users, the survey finds. The difference is primarily driven by satisfaction with customer service, sales representatives/account executives, and offerings and promotions.

The survey results indicate that wireless providers excel at offering incentives and are providing a variety of wireless plans to meet the business needs of their customers. In contrast, the home-based business customer segment also shows differences, but not to the degree of customers in the small/medium business customer segment.

“Clearly, there is a service advantage to offering mobile broadband capabilities to business customers, especially considering their need to be productive while traveling,” said Kirk Parsons (News - Alert), senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and Associates, in a statement.

“Being able to meet or exceed service expectations among these customers—knowing that they pay a premium price to access data at higher speeds—is critical, and having customer touch points such as care and sales representatives that cater specifically to these needs is key,” Parsons added.

This scenario is even more critical for larger businesses that have hundreds of field or sales representatives that depend on quick and dependable mobile connections to conduct day-to-day activities, according to Parsons.

J.D. Power and Associates’ survey also highlights that having a single point of contact for sales and service issues can influence satisfaction of customers. Small/medium segment business customers are more likely to have a dedicated sales representative to deal with sales and customer service issues, which tends to lead to higher levels of overall customer satisfaction.

According to J.D. Power and Associates, Verizon (News - Alert) Wireless ranks highest n customer satisfaction in both the home-based and small/medium business segments. It also performed well in four of the six factors that measured the satisfaction. This includes performance/reliability; sales reps/account executives; billing; and offerings/promotions.

T-Mobile (News - Alert) follows Verizon Wireless closely in the home-based business segment, performing well in cost of service and customer service. In the small/medium business segment, Sprint (News - Alert) follows Verizon Wireless and performs well in the cost of service and customer service, according to the survey.

The fact that differentiates Verizon from others in the survey is the high-quality network performance and reliability of their service. “Network-related issues, such as call quality and network reliability, are critical elements that greatly impact daily decision-making processes for businesses, and Verizon Wireless (News - Alert) has done well to effectively meet the needs of their customers,” Parsons said.

The 2011 U.S. Business Wireless Satisfaction Study is based on responses from wireless service decision-makers at more than 3,172 U.S. businesses. The study was fielded between November 2010 and February 2011.

In September 2010, J.D. Power and Associates announced  the results of 2010 U.S. Residential Telephone Customer Satisfaction Study. It found that customer satisfaction with residential telephone service increased for a second consecutive time, most primarily because of gains in satisfaction with the customer service experience.