Business Wireline: The Best & Worst Companies for Customer Satisfaction
AT&T and Verizon are leading the pack in business wireline satisfaction, according to J.D. Power‘s latest study.
The research firm unveiled its latest Business Wireline Satisfaction study, which shows AT&T earning major praise from large enterprises.
Although its chief rival won the enterprise and SMB categories, Verizon absolutely dominated the very small business segment. Cox scored second for very small businesses the previous year, but fell way down to sixth in 2020
AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, Comcast, Cox, Spectrum and Frontier are featured in the business wireline study.
J.D. Power managing director Ian Greenblatt praised service providers for weathering the COVID-19 storm. Satisfaction scores improved from 2019 across all business segments despite a hard-hit economy.
J.D. Power’s Ian Greenblatt
“Business wireline providers have shown tremendous resiliency by maintaining exceptional customer service despite myriad unanticipated roadblocks presenting themselves as they moved entire call centers to remote work,” Greenblatt said.
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It’s also worth noting that J.D. Power conducted the survey during April and May 2019 — right as business were sending employees home.
“With planned redundancies and excellent and effective service, providers quickly made the seamless transition to ‘safer at home’ without seeing a dip in satisfaction — an impressive feat in these extraordinary times,” he said.
Overall satisfaction with business wireline providers significantly increases across all segments, according to the J.D. Power 2020 U.S. Business Wireline Satisfaction Study
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— J.D. Power (@JDPower) July 9, 2020
A Growing Discrepancy
One troubling trend to note, however, is that the satisfaction gap between large enterprises and very small businesses increased again. In other words, large enterprise customers reported an average satisfaction of 863 and very small business customers reported an average satisfaction of 751. That’s a 112-point gap, which increased from 97 last year.
“Smaller business customers may be less profitable, but if wireline companies can address the opportunities in very small business customer service, they will see an increase in satisfaction and, ultimately, retention,” Greenblatt said last year.
Scroll through the 12 slides below to see how J.D. Power conducted the study. You’ll also want to find out how the seven service providers fared.
Methodology
J.D. Power queried 3,652 businesses that buy data and voice services from seven wireline providers. The respondents scored their experiences, which include performance, cost, communications, personal interactions with the provider, billing and customer service.J.D. Power divided the survey into three segments: large enterprises, small and medium-size businesses, and very small businesses.
Very Small Business
It's not remotely close in the first demographic. Verizon barely bested Cox by six points last year but beat its closest competitor by 37 points this time around. Cox not only slipped from second place, but saw its score fall. Comcast leapfrogged Cox for a strong second-place finish.Respondents in the VSB category employ 1-19 people.
SMB
AT&T and Verizon stood within a point of each other in 2019, but Ma Bell opened up a 23-point lead in 2020.It's a rising tide in the small and medium-size business category, as every single vendor improved its score over last year. As a result, the average SMB satisfaction score leaped from 797 to 835.
Respondents in the SMB category employ 20-499 people.
Enterprise
AT&T expanded its lead in another category: companies with 500 or more employees. It turned an 11-point gap over Verizon into 24 points. The rankings remain the same except for the two bottom places, which Comcast and Spectrum flipped.
7-Year Outlook
We charted J.D. Power's large enterprise data for the last seven years. The results show an ongoing rise in customer satisfaction. All carriers registered a personal best satisfaction score in 2020.
Frontier
- Very Small Business: 7th
- SMB: N/A
- Large Enterprise: N/A
Cox Business
- Very Small Business: 5th
- SMB: 6th
- Large Enterprise: N/A
Cox recently signed a master agent agreement with TBI.
Spectrum Business
- Very Small Business: 4th
- SMB: 4th
- Large Enterprise: 5th
Comcast Business
- Very Small Business: 2nd
- SMB: 5th
- Large Enterprise: 4th
The company and its partners made several free tools available to customers back in April. Comcast also launched an enterprise-grade residential connectivity package for businesses last month.
CenturyLink
- Very Small Business: 6th
- SMB: 3rd
- Large Enterprise: 3rd
The company discussed coronavirus implications in a late March SEC filing.
Verizon
- Very Small Business: 1st
- SMB: 2nd
- Large Enterprise: 2nd
The company is adding Google Cloud Contact Center AI capabilities to improve customer service.
AT&T
- Very Small Business: 3rd
- SMB: 1st
- Large Enterprise: 1st
In other news, the company recently added an SD-WAN managed service.
