Today, there’s often a lot more riding in your pocket than a simple phone used for making simple voice calls. Wireless services – and phones – offer an increasingly rich and complex palette of services and features are increasingly complex. The Internet, MP3 files, video, multimedia messaging, GPS services and an ever-larger cast of functions and capabilities are great, but they can increasingly prompt a call for help. Forty-nine percent of wireless customers J.D. Power studied contacted customer care for assistance within the past year—up two percent from six months ago.

The J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Wireless Customer Care Performance Study^SM—Volume 2 analyzed the responses 11,000 wireless customers who’d contacted customer service during the past year to find what made them happy and what made their blood pressure rise. One of the clear trigger points for discontent was, not surprisingly, time spent on hold.

Wait time to get a live customer service person on the line rose 34 percent last year – up more than a minute to 4.4 minutes. When that happens, customer satisfaction is put on hold as well. Customers put on hold are 83 percent more likely to switch carriers than those who aren’t.

If listening to soothing music and periodic reassurances that “your call is very important to us” isn’t your favorite pastime, the Wireless Customer Care Performance Study highlights the carriers who perform best in their customers’ opinions.

• Verizon Wireless ranks highest in wireless customer care performance, performing particularly well in resolving problems in a single contact.
• Alltel, T-Mobile and AT&T follow in the rankings and exceed the industry average.

Customers place particular value on the ability to solve their questions with a single call. Overall customer care performance is three times higher among customers whose issues were resolved in one contact over the phone than it is for those who had to contact their provider more than once.

Other key wireless customer care patterns:

• Three quarters of all service requests are made over the phone. Visits to the provider’s retail store account for nearly all of the remaining contacts, with only 1 percent of queries made via e-mail or over the Internet.
• The average number of reported phone contacts needed to resolve a customer inquiry is 1.76, down from 1.91 contacts in the last reporting period.
• Customers who visit the provider’s retail store for service inquiries report waiting an average of seven minutes before speaking with a representative.

For more information, view wireless customer care ratings or read the press release.