T-Mobile Again Dominates AT&T, Verizon, Sprint in Business Wireless Survey
It’s a clean sweep for T-Mobile. Again.
J.D. Power just announced its 2019 Business Wireless Satisfaction Study, and the Deutsche Telekom-owned mobile network operator earned the top rating in all three business segments for the third consecutive year.
T-Mobile’s John Legere
The carrier in a celebratory press release credited “generous hotspot data, published rate plan pricing” and strong customer service among the many factors attributing to its dominance. T-Mobile John Legere said his company takes a customer-first approach.
“Four years ago, we took a leap of faith and made a bet that business customers want simplicity, transparency and a fair value. Three straight J.D. Power wins later, and it’s clear that we were right! Business customers continue to shake up the status quo with us, and they are happy about it!” Legere said in a statement.
AT&T, Sprint and Verizon placed second in the large enterprise, SMB and very small business categories, respectively.
?Dynasty alert!?
I Guess business customers like things like international data, inflight Wifi, great customer service and transparency, who knew??♂️ Oh, that’s right. @TMobileBusiness knew ? https://t.co/WL4aEIWdwV— John Legere (@JohnLegere) October 10, 2019
The study surveyed nearly 2,800 U.S. business professionals that are responsible for their companies’ wireless services. They answered questions about reliability, promotions, cost, billing, support staff and customer service.
J.D. Power noted three specific trends in its news announcement. First, very small businesses aren’t enjoying the rapid growth in satisfaction that their larger counterparts are seeing. While enterprise respondents are much happier with their carriers’ customer service than they were three years ago (a score of 868 vs. 821), very small business customers report only a slight customer service improvement (770 vs. 761).
The smallest segment experienced less dedicated support, more transfers and longer hold time than SMBs and enterprises.
“The growing gap in customer service satisfaction between large enterprise customers and very small business customers is a missed opportunity for wireless carriers,” said Ian Greenblatt, J.D. Power’s technology, media and telecom practice lead. “The small business customer segment presents unique challenges because these companies are more reliant on their wireless carriers to solve tech issues and are disproportionally affected when problems arise; in fact, negative customer service contacts take a far greater toll on the satisfaction of very small business customers than on large enterprise customers. Carriers that get the small business formula right will see significant improvements in retention and advocacy.”
.@TMobile ranks #1 in the 2019 U.S. Business Wireless Satisfaction Study, ranking highest in the large enterprise, small/medium biz and very small business segments. #JDPowerAwards
Learn more about the 2019 U.S. Business Wireless Satisfaction Study > https://t.co/9mfA9sAeZN
— J.D. Power (@JDPower) October 14, 2019
Verizon dominated the J.D. Power Business Wireline Satisfaction Study earlier this year, outperforming its rivals in the SMB and very small business categories. AT&T scored first with large enterprises.
Scroll through the images below to see the precise scores for T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T and Sprint.
T-Mobile landed a convincing 21-point win in the enterprise category. It scored just about where it was last year (871).
AT&T took second spot with a score of 849 and managed to surpass the segment average (842). It's AT&T's third consecutive second-place finish for large enterprises. Verizon wasn't far behind in third (836). Sprint brought up the rear, but it tallied a 19-point improvement over the previous year.
The large enterprise respondents come from companies with 500 or more employees.
T-Mobile placed first again, but the story here is Sprint leapfrogging AT&T and Verizon to take second. The SMB category, which features businesses with 200-499 employees, dropped 14 points in average satisfaction.
Sprint executives are eagerly awaiting the final stages of regulatory approval for its merger with T-Mobile.
This segment has never been close. T-Mobile led Verizon by 35 points in 2017, 38 points in 2018 and now 36. AT&T and Sprint remained close to each other at 3rd and 4th, respectively, for the third consecutive year.
The very small business category contains companies of fewer than 20 employees.
