While T-Mobile can take pride in achieving the top spot in the JD Power Wireless Purchase Experience survey 11 out of the last 15 times, a fourth place finish this time around is clearly disappointing. After the J.D. Power press release went out, T-Mobile released their own brief statement touching on their efforts to improve the wireless purchasing experience once they began to see customer happiness decline. Along with their official statement comes an internal statement that went out to employees earlier today also touching on the disappointing JD Power results. Both statements follow:

 

Official statement:

T-Mobile Addresses J.D. Power Wireless Purchase Experience Results

While our scores for online purchase experience improved, our overall fourth place finish is disappointing. Delivering outstanding customer service and a great shopping experience is core to T-Mobile, and we’ve been consistently recognized as a leader in that area.

During the period of time in which JD Power conducted this study we introduced many new offers combined with changes to our policies and procedures, which made it difficult for our frontline to deliver the highest level of service to customers. When we began to see the impact of these changes through feedback from our frontline employees and customers, we reacted by making significant changes during the last few months of 2011. Those overall changes have been a step in the right direction and we have already seen our customer satisfaction steadily improve month over month.

T-Mobile has been consistently recognized for its customer service and we are committed to re-establishing our outstanding service reputation, giving our customers the great service they deserve and previously relied on from T-Mobile.

Unofficial Statement:

Subject: JDP Purchase Experience Results

Field Sales Team,

A few weeks ago we wrote with results on the JD Power and Associates (JDP) Customer Care study. Today, JD Power released its Wireless Purchase Experience Study and T-Mobile ranked fourth for overall Wireless Purchase Experience — one point behind AT&T. We scored 5 points below the industry average — a decline of 14 points compared to the previous study.

This particular study measures the satisfaction of our customers who recently had a wireless purchase experience through visits to a T-Mobile store, calls to Customer Care or online. The most important factor in this study is the customers’ interaction with our Retail Store Representatives. The study results show that we need to focus on three key attributes to improve customer satisfaction:

• Promptness in being able to speak with a representative
• Knowledge of the representative
• And, Courtesy of the representative

This news is disappointing to share. However, as we discussed a few weeks ago, several changes were incorporated at the beginning of this study’s reporting period which made it difficult for frontline employees to deliver the highest level of service to customers.

Our frontline teams have always prided themselves in our customers’ satisfaction. With our focus moving forward on executing the customer standards as well as our customer loyalty initiative “Drive Down Churn, Drive Up Loyalty” and working with our partners in Direct to Customer, we expect to see gains in re-establishing our customer service leadership. We have already seen our JDP satisfaction score steadily improve month over month, resulting in a 32-point increase from our low point in September to the last report in December.

We’ll continue to implement tools and training to help us focus on the customer experience. And, starting in March, we’ll bring back internal programs to measure our customers’ satisfaction such as Secret Shop for both Retail and TPR as well as customer SMS surveys with specific questions regarding the customer experience.

The next JD Power study on the Wireless Purchase Experience is under way and “One Person DOES Make a Difference”. Each and every one of you has a big impact on customer satisfaction and we each have the opportunity to make every T-Mobile customer a satisfied, lifelong T-Mobile customer.

Together, we sincerely thank you for everything you have done, continue to do and will do throughout 2012 to deliver outstanding customer service.