T-Mobile wins accolades from J.D. Power again

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-993...?tag=cnetfd.mt

OK, now it really is getting boring. T-Mobile announced today that it won
yet another title from J.D. Power and Associates. This time the carrier
took top honors in a survey of wireless retail sales satisfaction by
hitting top marks in the four considered categories: sales staff, store
display, store facility, and price/promotion. But T-Mobile wasn't alone at
the top. Alltel trailed by two points to take second place while Verizon
Wireless came in third. AT&T was rated as average and Sprint Nextel came in
last with a below average rating in all four categories.

This is not the first time T-Mobile has won accolades from J.D. Power.
Earlier this year the carrier held the number one ranking in a customer
service satisfaction survey. That's the seventh consecutive time T-Mobile
won that prize. As I've said before, T-Mobile must be doing something
right.

So what's your story with T-Mobile? Is the carrier as hot as J.D. Power
thinks? I welcome your comments and experiences. You get bonus points if
you're T-Mobile's 30 millionth customer. The carrier announced it had
reached that milestone yesterday. And considering T-Mobile launched its 3G
network on Monday, it's been a big week. Congratulations to T-Mobile.

Meg wrote:
> http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-993...?tag=cnetfd.mt
>
> OK, now it really is getting boring. T-Mobile announced today that it won
> yet another title from J.D. Power and Associates. This time the carrier
> took top honors in a survey of wireless retail sales satisfaction by
> hitting top marks in the four considered categories: sales staff, store
> display, store facility, and price/promotion. But T-Mobile wasn't alone at
> the top. Alltel trailed by two points to take second place while Verizon
> Wireless came in third. AT&T was rated as average and Sprint Nextel came in
> last with a below average rating in all four categories.
>
> This is not the first time T-Mobile has won accolades from J.D. Power.
> Earlier this year the carrier held the number one ranking in a customer
> service satisfaction survey. That's the seventh consecutive time T-Mobile
> won that prize. As I've said before, T-Mobile must be doing something
> right.
>
> So what's your story with T-Mobile? Is the carrier as hot as J.D. Power
> thinks? I welcome your comments and experiences. You get bonus points if
> you're T-Mobile's 30 millionth customer. The carrier announced it had
> reached that milestone yesterday. And considering T-Mobile launched its 3G
> network on Monday, it's been a big week. Congratulations to T-Mobile.

I've dealt with T-Mobile a lot recently, having bought two prepaid
phones from them. Indeed my sales satisfaction tops the other carriers
I've dealt with (other than in the early days of the old AT&T Wireless).
I particularly am impressed that their retail store sales people will
check coveage at your house, without being asked, when you go in to sign
up for service, and then will discourage you from signing on with them
if their is no coverage where you live.

The problem with T-Mobile is not their sales organization, it's their
network. I bought the prepaid phones from them because I needed some
inexpensive, unlocked, quad-band, bluetooth, GSM phones to use with
foreign prepaid SIM cards. T-Mobile coverage is generally very poor out
west. I live in a very urban part of Silicon Valley, and T-Mobile has
almost no coverage. It's not their fault. They have the less desirable
1900 MHz spectrum which requires a lot more cell sites to achieve the
same coverage as the 800 MHz carriers. They've been trying to get
permission to install more cell sites for years, but have been stymid by
NIMBY types. Regardless of the reasons for their coverage issues, they
are often unusable out here, suffering from excessive dropped calls in
their dead spots, or the inability to initiate or receive a call at all.
That's why they have such high churn, despite their good prices, and
good sales satisfaction.

meg@cellular.com (Meg) wrote in
news:20080510130805.589254E4BE@outpost.zedz.net:

> Alltel trailed by two points to take second place while Verizon
> Wireless came in third. AT&T was rated as average and Sprint Nextel
> came in last with a below average rating in all four categories.
>

I wonder if the rating was like:
T-mobile

Alltel

Verizon

.....or more like:
T-mobile

Alltel






































Verizon







ATT


















































Sprint/Nextel

(c;

At 10 May 2008 13:08:09 +0000 Meg wrote:
> So what's your story with T-Mobile?

What's your story with this post? You didn't bother posting it in the
generic cellular group (alt.cellular) or either T-Mobile group (the current
alt.cellular.t-mobile or the mostly abandoned alt.gsm.carriers.voicestream)-
only the Verizon group where it is likely to be construed as trolling.

> Is the carrier as hot as J.D. Power
> thinks? I welcome your comments and experiences. You get bonus points if
> you're T-Mobile's 30 millionth customer. The carrier announced it had
> reached that milestone yesterday.

Then the "30 millionth customer" doesn't really have many experiences to
share with us if he or she has only been with T-Mo for 24 HOURS, agreed?

> And considering T-Mobile launched its 3G
> network on Monday, it's been a big week. Congratulations to T-Mobile.


Yep, congratulations! Dead last, by several years, in a field of four
nationwide carriers to launch 3G, and on a non-standard frequency supported
by exactly ONE handset they sell! A proud day indeed. Next year I hear
they're launching touch-tone dialing!

Kidding, and sarcasm, aside, as a six-plus year T-Mo customer, I find T-
Mo's customer service to be excellent, indeed. It has to be, though, since
all other aspects of the service (except price) are weaker than the
competition- coverage, phone selection and lack of a nationwide high-speed
data network.

The price and the CS are all that keeps me around, and unless they offer
some decent high-end PDA phones with their odd-ball 3G service PRONTO, I'll
be testing the lousy-rated CS over at Sprint on a SERO plan by year's-end.

At 10 May 2008 07:19:41 -0700 SMS wrote:

> The problem with T-Mobile is not their sales organization, it's their
> network...

> Regardless of the reasons for their coverage issues, they are often
> unusable out here, suffering from excessive dropped calls in their
> dead spots, or the inability to initiate or receive a call at all. That's
> why they have such high churn, despite their good prices, and good sales
> satisfaction.

Can we at least agree that your above stated reason for their churn is
your _opinion_ rather than any independently documented evidence?

T-Mo's rural coverage is lacking (comparitively), but in my 6+ years with
them I find their urban/suburban coverage (even in the Bay Area) ranges
from adequate to excellent, depending on market.

My opinion (note the use of the word "opinion") as to their churn is simply
due to their demographic: value-oriented (including poor-credit!) customers
and young people (including a lot of teens and very young adults), neither
of whom have the "staying power" of business customers or an older
demographic who tend to stick with a service if it works well for them.

Younger folks are far more likely to be distracted by shiny objects and
flit to a service that has the "hottest new gadget," at least in my opinion
(and experience as a former cellular dealer of a decade.)

T-Mo's increased relianced on pre-paid and no-contract monthly plans (Flex-
Pay) also sets them up for higher churn (although their post-paid-only
churn numbers, admittedly, are still higher than AT&T or Verizon's.)

The historical lack of T-Mo coverage at your house and neighborhood should
not be extrapolated as "evidence" that it's the major cause of churn for a
national carrier.


(And, frankly, I thought we put the 1900MHz issue to rest. ;-) Seemingly
it's only a disadvantage when it's not Verizon, at least according to
Consumer Reports, who's survey ranked Verizon's performance in their
1900MHz-only cities as good or better than any other carrier there,
including the 800MHz carriers. CR's survey tends to indicate that coverage
is influenced more by the carrier's deployment rather than the technology
used.)

* Todd Allcock wrote, On 5/10/2008 20:41:
> At 10 May 2008 07:19:41 -0700 SMS wrote:
>
>> The problem with T-Mobile is not their sales organization, it's their
>> network...
>
>> Regardless of the reasons for their coverage issues, they are often
>> unusable out here, suffering from excessive dropped calls in their
>> dead spots, or the inability to initiate or receive a call at all. That's
>> why they have such high churn, despite their good prices, and good sales
>> satisfaction.
>
> Can we at least agree that your above stated reason for their churn is
> your _opinion_ rather than any independently documented evidence?
>
> T-Mo's rural coverage is lacking (comparitively), but in my 6+ years with
> them I find their urban/suburban coverage (even in the Bay Area) ranges
> from adequate to excellent, depending on market.

Are you speaking of the San Francisco Bay Area? If so, I don't know
where you live or travel, but obviously it's not Marin Country where
they poop out just past the center of Fairfax and then nothing out to
the coast. And I haven't found them at the coast traveling 10 miles
north or south from Sir Francis Drake.

The only reason I'm using them at the moment is that my contract with
ATT expired a year ago and after going through the number game found
that with my limited number of calls I was paying 20¢/min. Now with a
PPD card with TMO it's half that.

But they don't allow internet with the PPD card and I switch to their
PPD card that does allow it, then I lose every penny remaining on the
old card. Not great policy makers! Might as well switch to ATT PPD
card with internet and have full coverage.
Miles
>
> My opinion (note the use of the word "opinion") as to their churn is simply
> due to their demographic: value-oriented (including poor-credit!) customers
> and young people (including a lot of teens and very young adults), neither
> of whom have the "staying power" of business customers or an older
> demographic who tend to stick with a service if it works well for them.
>
> Younger folks are far more likely to be distracted by shiny objects and
> flit to a service that has the "hottest new gadget," at least in my opinion
> (and experience as a former cellular dealer of a decade.)
>
> T-Mo's increased relianced on pre-paid and no-contract monthly plans (Flex-
> Pay) also sets them up for higher churn (although their post-paid-only
> churn numbers, admittedly, are still higher than AT&T or Verizon's.)
>
> The historical lack of T-Mo coverage at your house and neighborhood should
> not be extrapolated as "evidence" that it's the major cause of churn for a
> national carrier.
>
>
> (And, frankly, I thought we put the 1900MHz issue to rest. ;-) Seemingly
> it's only a disadvantage when it's not Verizon, at least according to
> Consumer Reports, who's survey ranked Verizon's performance in their
> 1900MHz-only cities as good or better than any other carrier there,
> including the 800MHz carriers. CR's survey tends to indicate that coverage
> is influenced more by the carrier's deployment rather than the technology
> used.)
>
>

On 10 May 2008 13:08:09 -0000, meg@cellular.com (Meg) wrote:

>OK, now it really is getting boring. T-Mobile announced today that it won
>yet another title from J.D. Power and Associates. This time the carrier
>took top honors in a survey of wireless retail sales satisfaction by
>hitting top marks in the four considered categories: sales staff, store
>display, store facility, and price/promotion.

That's all very nice; have a cookie.

Now, how did you say their coverage and call quality compared with
Verizon???

Oh........

A_C

Todd Allcock wrote:
> At 10 May 2008 07:19:41 -0700 SMS wrote:
>
>> The problem with T-Mobile is not their sales organization, it's their
>> network...
>
>> Regardless of the reasons for their coverage issues, they are often
>> unusable out here, suffering from excessive dropped calls in their
>> dead spots, or the inability to initiate or receive a call at all. That's
>> why they have such high churn, despite their good prices, and good sales
>> satisfaction.
>
> Can we at least agree that your above stated reason for their churn is
> your _opinion_ rather than any independently documented evidence?

No, but if it makes you happy, we can say that it's _one_ of the reasons
for their high churn.

Some of the J.D. Power studies are intentionally misleading consumers,
and the one quoted was one of them. There are similar studies where some
of the worst quality vehicles win accolades for "sales satisfaction" or
"initial quality" but the reality is that they're unreliable vehicles
despite a pleasant buying experience, and do poorly in meaningful
studies such as long term dependability, or depreciation.

> T-Mo's rural coverage is lacking (comparitively), but in my 6+ years with
> them I find their urban/suburban coverage (even in the Bay Area) ranges
> from adequate to excellent, depending on market.

I find them excellent when I have coverage, and inadequate where there
is no coverage.

> (And, frankly, I thought we put the 1900MHz issue to rest.

I don't know where you got that idea. Even the Sprint and T-Mobile
people that show up at planning commission and city council meetings
asking for approval for towers admit that this is an issue, though they
never use "1900 MHz" in their lobbying. They are invariably questioned
as to why Cingular and Verizon are able to provide coverage to these
areas without the need for towers in these residential neighborhoods,
and have to explain about the 'different cellular technology' they use
that requires more sites. You can't look at a couple of areas where 1900
works perfectly well, and extrapolate from that that there is no issue
(or apparently you can).


;-) Seemingly
> it's only a disadvantage when it's not Verizon, at least according to
> Consumer Reports, who's survey ranked Verizon's performance in their
> 1900MHz-only cities as good or better than any other carrier there,
> including the 800MHz carriers. CR's survey tends to indicate that coverage
> is influenced more by the carrier's deployment rather than the technology
> used.)
>
>

Miles wrote:

> Are you speaking of the San Francisco Bay Area? If so, I don't know
> where you live or travel, but obviously it's not Marin Country where
> they poop out just past the center of Fairfax and then nothing out to
> the coast. And I haven't found them at the coast traveling 10 miles
> north or south from Sir Francis Drake.

Unfortunately, the areas you're talking about, central and western Marin
(and then up the coast), had a great deal of AMPS coverage that has
presumably gone away, so the PagePlus and Verizon coverage will have
suffered, but it's still good except in the really unpopulated areas.

I was out in an area of Marin last weekend (Marin Headlands) where I
used to always have great AMPS coverage, but no more. I could get one
bar of Verizon outside, and there was no AT&T or T-Mobile coverage
(Sprint had coverage roaming onto Verizon). Actually if I went a mile
out to the beach from where we were staying, the coverage improved on
all carriers, the problem was I was in a valley surrounded on three
sides by high hills, one one side by open ocean.

> The only reason I'm using them at the moment is that my contract with
> ATT expired a year ago and after going through the number game found
> that with my limited number of calls I was paying 20¢/min. Now with a
> PPD card with TMO it's half that.

Of course I can't resist saying that with PagePlus you could get those
minutes at 5.3¢, and have coverage as good or better as you had before.

Agent_C wrote:
> On 10 May 2008 13:08:09 -0000, meg@cellular.com (Meg) wrote:
>
>> OK, now it really is getting boring. T-Mobile announced today that it won
>> yet another title from J.D. Power and Associates. This time the carrier
>> took top honors in a survey of wireless retail sales satisfaction by
>> hitting top marks in the four considered categories: sales staff, store
>> display, store facility, and price/promotion.
>
> That's all very nice; have a cookie.
>
> Now, how did you say their coverage and call quality compared with
> Verizon???

Sales satisfaction is all that matters. Coverage and quality are
secondary considerations.

Just like when buying a car, I always buy the model where the
manufacturer rated highest in J.D. Power sales satisfaction, even when
the vehicle is worse than others in safety, fuel economy, performance,
and reliability. After all, that couple of hours in the dealership at
purchasing time is what matters most.