Slacker,
... and when all is said and done, the people speak:
J.D. POWER SURVEY GIVES POINTS TO AT&T WIRELESS
wirelessweek.com
According to a study released yesterday, AT&T Wireless Services' Digital One Rate plan and the AT&T brand have propelled the carrier to the customer satisfaction forefront in nine of 13 markets surveyed by market research firm J.D. Power and Associates.
AWS has the highest overall customer satisfaction ranking in Denver; Las Vegas; Miami; Minneapolis; Pittsburgh; Portland, Ore.; Sacramento, Calif.; Tampa, Fla.; and Washington, D.C./Baltimore.
In its 1999 U.S. Wireless Customer Satisfaction Study, J.D. Power says Bell Atlantic Mobile Inc. outranks its competitors in Boston and New York, the latter city being AWS' Achilles' heel.
On the West Coast, AirTouch Cellular leads in three of the 10 markets in which the carrier is measured: San Diego, Seattle and Los Angeles. BellSouth Mobility took the "satisfaction leader" distinction in Atlanta, while BellSouth Mobility DCS won in Charlotte, N.C. Other customer kudos went to Ameritech Cellular in Chicago and St. Louis, Sprint PCS in Dallas, GTE Wireless in Houston and Cellular One in San Francisco. No winner was established in Detroit.
J.D. Power's study is weighted differently on a variety of criteria: call quality, pricing options, corporate capability, customer service, cost of roaming, handsets and billing.
The survey results also illustrated how competitive pricing contributes to the increase in the average number of minutes used by subscribers. Minutes of use grew from 199 in 1998 to 242 in 1999. Monthly wireless household expenditures remained flat for the past two years, with the 1999 level at $64, the report said.
About 43 percent of households with incomes of at least $25,000 report having a wireless phone, an increase from 35 percent last year. Another 8 percent of surveyed households said they plan to subscribe to wireless services.
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