Newsletter
T-Mobile has taken to its official blog to announce that it has taken the top spot in terms of customer satisfaction in the U.S. for 2017. That’s according to independent reports from both YouGov Brand Index and HarrisX Mobile Insights. The claim being made is a bit odd since it is actually in contradiction to other studies conducted by JD Power late in 2017. That prior study, released in August. However, the JD Power study showing AT&T to be the top provider was focused more specifically on how customers rated their purchasing experience. Meanwhile, the studies cited by T-Mobile revolved around the overall satisfaction customers felt with their provider and how likely those customers were to recommend their respective carrier to others prospective customers.
As to the results of the study, HarrisX is said to have surveyed more than 360,000 mobile consumers and shows T-Mobile to be far ahead of other mobile service providers in terms of overall satisfaction. AT&T and Verizon held the second and third positions, taking turns in either spot over the course of the year – with Verizon taking the lead for the final quarter. Sprint’s numbers were somewhat more dismal, with HarrisX’s charts showing that the company’s numbers fell with some regularity over the course of the year. The mobile analytics firm also gauged how likely customers were to recommend their mobile carrier to others and again showed T-Mobile definitively leading the pack. In terms of recommendations, Verizon was a clear leader over both AT&T – which fell in at number three – and Sprint – which remained well below the competition but did manage to level off during the third quarter of 2017. That underlying trend continued with YouGov’s study, which showed T-Mobile consistently scoring 70 points out of 100 over the course of the year. Verizon, on the other hand, managed to hang on to second place while Sprint beat out AT&T for the first half of the year and the two companies tied for the latter half.
T-Mobile attributes its success to the continued rapid rollout of its LTE network. The company added coverage for an additional 7 million people from year-to-year and built up its network in previously uncovered areas of the country over the course of the year. In fact, its LTE network, according to the accompanying release, is operational in 586 cities across the U.S. on its 600MHz spectrum. The company also made headway with it 700MHz but says that it owns the license on enough 600MHz spectrum to effectively cover every citizen of the country. Moreover, T-Mobile says that its standings should continue to be attractive to customers over the course of 2018 as it plans to have more than a dozen 600MHz spectrum-capable smartphones across the range of smartphone price tiers.
