J.D. Power awards T-Mobile the highest score ever for wireless customer care

While T-Mobile is still the nation's third largest carrier, it is the fastest growing wireless operator in the country. When you consider where the carrier was a few short years ago, you can really appreciate what the company has accomplished. When we think back seven to eight years ago, T-Mobile was stuck behind Sprint, last among the top four major stateside carriers. It was last to start building out a 3G network and well behind Verizon and AT&T with 4G LTE. T-Mobile didn't have an identity outside of its television pitchwoman Carly.

When John Legere became CEO in 2012, he immediately tried something that his counterparts at the three other major U.S. carriers had never tried before; he put the customers first. He got rid of subsidized phones, two-year contracts and gave subscribers many perks (most recently, free Netflix). Legere soon became the Pied Piper of wireless as T-Mobile morphed into the most innovative of the major stateside carriers. When T-Mobile started Data Stash, allowing customers to rollover unused data from one billing cycle for 12 months, AT&T was quick to copy with its inferior Rollover Data.

Those not familiar with the executive would never guess that he is running a multi-billion dollar company. With his rock-star length hair, ever-present magenta T-Mobile t-shirt, Legere does not look like a CEO. And after hearing him call Verizon and AT&T "Dumb and Dumber," and toss away well-placed expletives during conversations, most would wonder how he got the job. But Legere is money in the bank; fixing customer "pain points" has become quite lucrative for the company. Some quarters, T-Mobile is responsible for the vast majority of industry profits in the U.S. Last year, 5.7 million net new customers signed on to T-Mobile.

Thanks to Legere's focus on the consumer, T-Mobile was just awarded the highest ever score for wireless customer care from J.D. Power. This was for the 2018 U.S. Wireless Customer Care Performance Study, Volume 1, for full-service firms. The carrier's pre-paid MetroPCS unit also set a new record for the survey conducted for non-contract carriers. For T-Mobile, this was the 15th time since 2004 that it finished first in this particular category, and for MetroPCS it was its fifth time on top dating back to 2013. 


The J.D. Power survey measures the entire customer care process from initial complaint to problem resolution. Both T-Mobile and MetroPCS finished with the exact same "overall satisfaction" score of 828, the highest in the eight years that the marketing information firm has measured customer care. Another analytical firm, HarrisX, had T-Mobile ranked number one throughout 2017 in Overall Customer Satisfaction, and likelihood to recommend. 

As for Legere, he has made T-Mobile extremely popular among kids, teens and young professionals. His constant social media exposure has turned him into a walking, talking 24 hours a day billboard for the brand.
 
source: T-Mobile