Verizon tops in wireless survey, Sprint falls behind

Verizon tops in wireless survey, Sprint falls behind

Chatters are growing happier with their overall wireless service,
according to a new survey, with Verizon Wireless taking top honors and
Sprint slipping into last place among the four big carriers. That said,
overall scores for customer satisfaction fell somewhat short of the
stratosphere.

The results come courtesy of the American Customer Satisfaction Index,
which rates various industries and companies on a scale of 1 to 100
based on national phone surveys.

The scores? Overall wireless service garnered a 68, the highest score
in the four years that the index has been tracking wireless
satisfaction—not bad, but not exactly what I'd call an A+.

Verizon Wireless scored a 72 in the survey, giving it top marks among
the four big wireless carriers. AT&T and T-Mobile both tied at 71,
with AT&T gaining the most ground thanks to its four-percent spike
since 2007 (thanks, in part, to the iPhone, according to ASCI
researchers).

Meanwhile, Sprint's ASCI rating fell to just 56, an 8 percent drop from
last year. What happened? Well, the struggling carrier's decision to
slash 5,000 jobs last year—with another 4,000 to come—could have
something to do with it, ASCI researchers said.

Just for comparison's sake, the spiraling airline industry got an ASCI
score of 62 (tumbling almost 14 percent from 1994), the U.S. Postal
Service got a 74 (up from a score of 61 in 1994), FedEx scored an 85,
and both McDonald's and Microsoft made do with a middling 69.