Verizon Wireless edges T-Mobile USA in customer care report

I don't get it. Both AT&T and Cingular customers use the same towers since the end of last year. What's the reason for the difference?

 

Well unless I'm mistaken, call completion wise, AT&T got the same score Cingular did...

 

Yep, you are mistaken :rasp:

The way I read it is that there are 2 categories. This time AT&T got "D" and "D", and the last year AT&T got a "D" and a "C"

Cingular, on the other hand, got both "C" last year and this year.

 

Duh...I'm not gonna say anything anymore, LOL.
I've been in front of my laptop nearly all day reading and writing timelines so I'm done for the day
You are, of course, correct, Bobolito!

 

I definitely thought VZ CC was worse in May 2004 than any other point when I had them. I had to wait often and the people were kinda stupid and had horrible southern thick accents.

Cingular has been better than expected, usually nice friendly reps from Kansas or so. I did have one rude, confrontational one, but I just called back.

ATT was just so awful...!

 

I'm guessing AT&T and Cingular still have separate customer care? Or at least the possibility of getting either former company's reps? Here's the full article

http://home.businesswire.com/portal...d=news_view&newsId=20050419005074&newsLang=en

 

Yes, they have separate CS. AWS is 24/7 or so, and Cingular has those ridiculous hours with no Sundays.

The funny thing is that if you have a Cingular phone and try to call AWS CS, YOUR CALL DOESN'T GO THROUGH! Amazing! All because a stupid caller ID system that AT&T has that automatically routes you to Cingular CS and you can't override it. So you either have to call from a landline or from another cell phone that is not Cingular's.

But they are right about AWS CS, it is one of the worst in the industry. The automated voice recognition tried to connect me to the retentions department after I sneezed! It is just so annoying trying to talk to a computer. I prefer the numbered menu. It is 1000 times more comfortable to follow. And don't get me started on wait time... Sometimes you can be on hold for 30 minutes or more!

 

I'm assuming you are referring to AWS only here. What's Cingular's wait time like?

 

I'm not surprised!

 

I never talk to the automated system, I just keep hitting 0 or 9 till it puts me thru to a rep.
I have only had 1 bad experience with CS from AWE, The other times they have been super nice & helpful, yet some have had real bad experience's, it's weird.

 

Cingular is pretty good. I usually get no more than 2 or 3 minutes. Sometimes within seconds. However, this depends on the market. I've read people from other markets report hold times as high as 10 minutes.

 

Yep. Whenever I had spoken with blue reps, they have been nice and helpful. It is just the hold time that kills them. However, that was a nice tactic to bypass the speech recognition system. I'll try that next time.

 

IMO, TM's general lack of hold times when calling CS does a lot for them in customer retention (given their coverage issues). 2-3 minutes is definitely acceptable - pretty good actually. TM is the best I've ever dealt with in any large company (WRT hold times) - usually 30 seconds or less.

 

You mean to tell me that cingular has still not gone to 24/7 customer service? Wow that's pathetic. I was actually thinking about switching back..but that alone would be enough of a reason to keep me from doing so. If I ever have any problems with my cell service..the only time i have to call is late at night. I switched over from cingular to verizon back in july of 2002. You'd think that they would finally get into the 21st century with their cs dept.

 

While Cingular's CS hours are limited the actual quality of customer service that you receive is very good. I've had nothing but good customer service experiences when I've talked to Cingular. By the way Cingular does have a emergency after hours number that can be used to report problems. So if its a emergency like a outage or something like that you can report that anytime.

 

t-mo just had a commercial on that said jd-power gave t-mo the best cust service rating. thats what i remember hearing

 

Per JD Power's & Assoc. T-Mobile does have the higher rating, this is by another company "Vocal Laboratories Inc.'s" I don't know if they are part of JD Powers, but there is nothing saying they are.
This must be another company that does the testing themselves vs getting opinons from regular user's like JD Powers does.

 

Your lucky. I've had nothing but problems with Cingulars CS issed: . How many times do you have to call them to disconnect your service? Two less than helpful reps, and finally on the third try this rep actually explained a couple of things the prior two should have mentioned in the first place. Having to call many times to correct billing errors (their errors, btw) is ridiculous. I've only had Cingular since November! What a waste of money. I thought their coverage was supposed to be better. For me, their "Allover" network is nowhere to be found. They are the new #1 carrier, and they behave like it. Good riddance Cingular!

Verizon and T-Mobile have been great. I'm not surprised they came out 1 and 2 in this report.