One of the biggest points echoed by T-Mobile customers when the topic turns to a potential AT&T merger is what will happen to their company’s praised customer service? While all wireless customer service departments are imperfect, T-Mobile has proven time and time again they are diamond in the rough and have the JD Power awards to support that statement. Thanks to Consumer Reports we have a look at how people really feel when it comes to comparing T-Mobile and AT&T both customer service wise as well as quality wise. The results aren’t likely to shock you:

• When it comes to contract service, T-Mobile outshines AT&T on almost every attribute AT&T rated except for texting problems where AT&T and T-Mobile both rated “below average.” It should be noted that both T-Mobile and AT&T rated below Sprint and Verizon for customer satisfaction on contract service.
• When the talk turns to prepaid satisfaction T-Mobile far outpaces AT&T for customer satisfaction. T-Mobile bests Verizon, Virgin, AT&T and was only surpassed by Tracfone and Consumer Cellular.
• Surprise surprise AT&T customer service is its Achilles’ heel. AT&T had sub-par scores in every aspect of customer service from phone support to solving general problems.
• T-Mobile was a better choice as a carrier in 20 of the 21 cities where sufficient data was available to properly compare the two carriers. T-Mobile suffered fewer dropped calls. Both carriers rated average or worse when compared with other major competitors in the cities test.
• When it comes to customers wanting to leave their current carrier, AT&T customers want to leave by almost 10 percentage points higher than do customers on the T-Mobile network. AT&T customers were “more likely to say they were seriously thinking about making a move…”

The bottom line is that AT&T has shown a downward trend in the past two years with the Consumer Reports survey showing a definite decrease in customer satisfaction with AT&T service. Even more notable is that CR makes a point to say that T-Mobile customers will “….find little to cheer about the proposed merger or clearly support the expected pitch from AT&T that the proposed takeover of its smaller competitor will improve service for current customers of both AT&T and T-Mobile.”

Consumer Reports