Kirk Parsons Customers Quotations

As more wireless companies encourage customers to try new services, it's becomes more difficult for the customer service representatives to be fully trained and kept apprised on the latest products being introduced. The downside is the carrier runs the risk of decreasing customer satisfaction and losing customers to other carriers. Since future switching levels are three times as high among customers who need to re-contact the carrier two or more times to get the inquiry resolved, the challenge for wireless providers is to provide contact channels that can offer an informative and efficient experience for their customers.

Intuitively, you would think service should be improving over time, and there's some indication that it is. But, relative to what customers expect, service hasn't been keeping up with their expectations.

It's clear that wireless providers have made great strides in improving the quality of calls, especially in those areas that impact customer churn the most, such as calls that are dropped or disconnected. With an increasingly competitive environment and an increase in the number of services used in conjunction with a cell phone, carriers that offer superior network quality will improve their likelihood of attracting new customers and will increase customer retention. In fact, improving network quality is a beneficial financial incentive for wireless carriers, as customers experiencing at least one call quality problem are three times more likely to indicate they 'definitely will' switch carriers in the future.

A key driver of the accelerated rollout of digital services among cable TV providers, ... is to counteract increasing competition from satellite providers and to protect their most valued customers from switching. The flip side of this drive is a pro-active strategy.

They're out there selling the product, saying 'Here's the latest handset,' and pushing the latest services, and when you do that, you raise expectations. Customers expect it to be simple, which, technically, wireless isn't. Wireless is a very technical application and technology. It's not an exact science. It really takes a lot to deliver that call. But the industry hasn't done a very good job of explaining that side of the story.