T-Mobile Tops Rankings But Industry Customer Care Lacking Says J.D. Power - According to a recently released report from J.D. Power and Associates, T-Mobile ranked highest among major national wireless carriers in satisfying customers who call their provider for service or assistance. Unfortunately, overall industry customer care performance decreased by 7 percent from 2003. "As more value-added services are offered and tried by consumers, the number of contacts needed to resolve a customer complaint or issue has increased," said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and Associates. "Since churn levels triple among those who rate their wireless carrier below average in customer care, the challenge for wireless providers is to offer an easy and efficient customer care transaction experience." Billing and network quality issues lead the list of reasons why customers contact their wireless carrier for assistance. The largest increases in type of contact inquiries from 2003 are issues relating to phone malfunctioning, phone replacement and questions/problems about voice messages and voice-message notifications. T-Mobile was followed in the rankings by Verizon Wireless, ALLTEL, Nextel, AT&T Wireless, Cingular, and Sprint PCS. For more information on the study, click here(iii).
BUCKS WATCH
More Rate Increases on the Way for MCI Customers - Effective October 1, subscribers to MCI's Basic Dial One plan will see their rate for weekday off-peak (7:00pm-6:59am) state-to-state long distance calls increase by 5¢ from 30¢ to 35¢ per minute. According to an MCI spokesperson, the rate change will affect a very small portion of MCI subscribers. For more information on this rate increase, click here(iv).
SPAM WATCH
VoIP Spam Could Be On the Horizon - One of the great things about VoIP service is that it blends many of the features that make e-mail a "killer app" with traditional telephone service. Unfortunately, as VoIP increasingly enters the consumer mainstream, the new technology may prove to be very attractive to telemarketers and spammers. VoIP spam is a combination of telemarketing calls and e-mail spam in which a single "caller" uses Internet technology to send thousands of voice messages simultaneously into callers' VoIP voice mailboxes. The United States Telecommunications Association recently described this capability as a top security challenge ahead for the telephony industry. A company called Qovia has already developed VoIP spam blocking software to help corporations deal with the issue before it becomes a problem. For more information on VoIP spam, click here(v).
TRAC IN THE NEWS
Rate Increases Make National News - Last week's TRACNotes story on the Sprint and MCI rate increases was picked up by the Associated Press and appeared in a number of national newpapers. "Industrywide, you're seeing a rebalancing of rates and fees," said Scott Stoffel, a Sprint spokesman. The company "adjusted the pricing based on what's going on in the marketplace," said Natasha Haubold, an MCI spokeswoman. "These are older plans," she said. "We offer a number of newer plans that are extremely competitive. We're working with customers to transition them to the newer plans." Click here(vi) to read the AP story.
INTERESTING LINKS
FCC Main Page - http://www.fcc.gov
FCC Complaint Form - http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cib/fcc475.cfm
List of State Regulatory Commissions - http://www.naruc.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=15
What do you think? Got a tip you want to share? Nominate your "Scam of the Week" and your "Tip of the Week" - If we select your submission, we'll give you a one-year free membership in TRAC and acknowledge your contribution by name in TRACNotes. Send an e-mail to trac@trac.org to submit your ideas!
©2004 Telecommunications Research and Action Center. TRAC grants unlimited rights to reproduce TRACNotes or any information contained in it provided attribution is given as follows: "Source:Telecommunications Research and Action Center. http://www.trac.org"
Endnotes
