Consumer Reports: AT&T Rated Worst Customer Satisfaction; Verizon Rated Best

The bad news for AT&T keeps on coming. With its acquisition of T-Mobile in jeopardy, the number-two carrier in America was once again given the lowest customer satisfaction ratings of any of the four major mobile carriers in the U.S., according to the latest survey from Consumer Reports.

Oregon-based Consumer Cellular received the highest ratings overall for contract carriers, while Verizon took home the highest customer satisfaction ratings among the four goliaths, beating out Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T, in that order.

From the press release accompanying the Consumer Reports survey results, which were gleaned by surveying "over 66,000 of [CR's] subscribers about their service and customer-support experience with both standard and no-contract providers":

Of the four major U.S. national cell-phone standard service providers, Verizon again scored the highest in this year’s Ratings, followed closely by Sprint. Survey respondents gave very good scores to Verizon for texting and data service satisfaction, as well for staff knowledge.

T-Mobile was below Verizon and Sprint but continued to rate significantly better than the higher-priced AT&T, which recently withdrew its application to the FCC to merge with its better rival.

Consumer Reports also showed love to regional carriers and prepaid plans, saying that those plans, though not for everyone, generally produced the happiest customers. Consumer Cellular, for example, scored very high on customer support and value of calling plans; U.S. Cellular, which placed second overall for contract carriers and which services about six million customers to make it the sixth largest carrier in the United States, received high marks across the board for customer support, texting and voice quality.

Among the major carriers, Verizon scored high for staff knowledge and data speed quality, while AT&T received low marks for value, voice quality and over-the-phone customer support.

AT&T has consistently been hammered by surveys like this over the past year. After being called the "worst carrier" in 2010 by Consumer Reports, J.D. Power said in August 2011 that AT&T's network was the least reliable in America, and a separate report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index in May called AT&T's customers the least happy of the Big Four carriers.

The company did receive at least one honor this year: Metrico Wireless published a report finding that AT&T was the fastest choice for the iPhone 4S, due to its HSPA+ network; coming full circle, Consumer Reports announced earlier that it could recommend the iPhone 4S after not being able to recommended the iPhone 4 due to antenna problems.

The full results of the Consumer Reports annual satisfaction survey are available to Consumer Reports subscribers online here or in the January issue of the Consumer Reports magazine.

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UPDATE: Here's a statement from AT&T on the Consumer Reports survey, sent to HuffPost by an AT&T spokesperson:

While we'll of course evaluate and learn from the Consumer Reports survey, we made significant progress in our network in 2011 including a 25 percent improvement in 3G dropped call performance, 48,000 network improvements (more capacity, new cell sites, faster data speeds, and better connections), and many billions of dollars in capital investment to continue to improve our network. Only AT&T's network lets the iPhone 4S download three times faster and enables simultaneous talk and surf for all smartphones. And, as customer demand continues to skyrocket, our proposed T-Mobile merger will enable AT&T to improve our customers' experience even more.

Comments

[Toua Lima]

10:45 PM on 09/09/2012

LazyCash38.com

[amy78ls]

04:26 PM on 12/07/2011

I left Verizon for the iPhone after 13 years of the most reliable and amazing service. I LOVE my iPhone (regardless of the many challenges) but switching to AT&T 3 years ago was the worst mistake EVER!

Here are a few of the ridiculous things AT&T Customer Service or rather Non-service agents have said to me,

"AT&T provides the phone service but you need to contact Apple to be released from the remaining months of your service contract. AT&T does not have that authority."

When I called regarding being unable to use my phone in my house..... "Cell phones were created to be used outside not inside, we don't guarantee service inside a home."
and another time...

"If you refer back to your contract agreement you will see that AT&T does NOT guarantee phone service...
(yes this is true, so if your phone drops 30 calls a day and you have work/business problems due to the inability to use your phone you're screwed.) I'm sure that is probably the case with most carriers but it's freaking ridiculous. Okay, well I won't guarantee you payment then.

(continued)

[amy78ls]

04:31 PM on 12/07/2011

I have been told so many lies by AT&T it's hysterical. I tried calling them out numerous times asking them to replay past conversations and of course they said they couldn't. I bet if I would have made some commitment to extend my contract or add a feature they sure as hell would have been able to pull THAT conversation back up for me.

It took AT&T SIX WEEKS to set up and port my home phone number to their service. I authorized them to port my home number over, went thru the process over the phone and when I had no phone line a week later called them back and they said that I never set up home phone service with them. WTF? I would have never known about having to 'port' your existing number over. So I went thru the process again and authorized them to port the old number over and like I said it took a total of SIX WEEKS to get my service turned on.

[amy78ls]

04:32 PM on 12/07/2011

Another time, a home phone tech came out and was too lazy to run another phone line so he decided to cut the line my security alarm was on to save him time. This left my alarm system without monitoring and during that week (I was out of town) my roommate stole $600 worth of jewelry from me. Since the line my alarm system was on was disabled, I could not go back and retrieve the passwords/dates and times used to enter in and out of my house and had no proof of who was in my home.

One month after signing on for the bundle package using their DSL, my Internet stopped working. After hours of trouble shooting I was informed that U-verse Internet was now in my area and I HAD to be switched to U-verse as they were no longer offering DSL. So I had to wait a week for a tech to come out (with no internet) and pay over $140 for the new U-verse internet service that is slower than molasses.

And the above doesn't even scratch the surface of the crap I've dealt with. AT&T is the most miserable excuse for a company.

[etssms]

03:54 PM on 12/07/2011

sorry about the double post... you get my point!

[etssms]

03:46 PM on 12/07/2011

5 years of misery. All because of the iphone. ( love my kids!) AT&T is a horrible company. 5 years of dropped calls, no service. static, buzz.. etc etc. As a consumer I wanted to see if it would pay to stay with them.(contract up next month) Called customer service. (Actually customer no service) Asked about incentives for a loyal customer to sign on for 2 more years. (4 lines) The answer was... "Thank you for being a loyal AT&T customer sorry no" so bye bye AT&T... a suggestion for all you VP's at AT&T. I would think about changing the idiotic "Rethink Possible" to maybe " We don't think that's why we're impossible!" Stay away from AT&T save the aggravation..

[King7David]

06:15 PM on 12/07/2011

I actually left AT&T and have never looked back since.....Glad I did...

[etssms]

03:08 PM on 12/07/2011

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have used AT&T for 5 years. ( I should have my head examined!) Part of the reason was the iphone,( kids) Either way as disgusted as I am with them, (my contract ends next month), I figured I would give them the benefit of the doubt. Called customer service. After I found someone that understood English, I asked about incentives to renew the contract. You guessed it.. ZERO. Not one incentive to hold onto a loyal customer. That being said, Cant wait to leave a poorly managed, arrogant company which is all AT&T is. Instead of the "Rethink Possible" logo.. they should say We don't think, we're impossible! STAY AWAY IT WILL SAVE YOU 2 YEARS OF MISERY!

[mskittykat1326]

02:28 PM on 12/07/2011

"AT&T has consistently been hammered by surveys like this over the past year(S)."

- HuffPo forgot to add an "s".

If it weren't for my husband's international travel, we'd have left AT&T long ago. Ever since Cingular adopted them and the name, AT&T has never been all that great. Consistent dropped calls, promises not full-filled, poor customer service (why should we call for 4 months straight to resolve a bill issue that they claimed to have resolved each time?), and just general poor coverage? You may have the "fastest network" but what good does it do if you can't connect or constantly drop a connection?

That's why they had such a fit when Verizon would show AT&T's true 3G national coverage as compared to their own. The map they acquired was on AT&T's own site, just very difficult to acquire.

[King7David]

06:18 PM on 12/07/2011

Yes, you are right. I think they hired too many children to run their company and as a result service suffered.

At&t hiring so many children is surely going to cost them..

[LVNVprog]

12:04 PM on 12/07/2011

In Las Vegas once you leave The Strip AT&T is horrible. We will go to Verizon as soon as the contract is up. We live in a sight line of two towers, yet AT&T must not have their service on them, yet Verizon works great. On drives from Las Vegas to San Francisco it's the same in most cases you have Verizon service, you don;t have AT&T service.

[tresor325]

12:01 PM on 12/07/2011

I have had Verizon since cell phone plans have been around......I was the only one in my family of four (each with a different carrier.)..... who gets clear service in downtown Chicago by the lake.....the .northwoods of Wisconsin, the deep recesses of huge hospitals or shopping malls and.....Pikes Peak (tallest spot in the US). My children have switched to Verizon and my poor hubby is stuck with his company's plan. Cannot TELL you how many times he has had to use our phones for a business call as his couldnt "get service" and he has to use this other carrier for international travel........which is a joke!

[Lisa Carol HaynesDeyoung]

12:00 PM on 12/07/2011

In my opinion, Verizon is the worse. I have been a customer of theirs since 2005. Everytime I sign a new contract it will stay low and a reasonable price and within 5 months my bill will start going up more and more each month and by the time I sign another contract my bill has risen at least 60 to 80 dollars. They somehow get money out of me and it makes no sense. My fees will be low and all of a sudden they start jacking them up. I have no choice but to stay with them cause that's the only service we get. I have been in the store and been told stuff and I will be talking to a different sales person and they will tell me SOMETHING DIFFERENT and I'll call verizon and I GET ANOTHER DIFFERENT ANSWER! Everytime I gotta call Verizon I will speak to at least 3 different people and I will get a different answer form all of them. They don't know what they're doing! I get the run around and end up paying more. I can say someone told me this and it doesn't matter to them, I still have to pay all these fees and charges because someone lied to me. they will not own up to what they tell people. I've heard AT&T giving better service (not signal service) than Verizon!

[janet41652]

11:53 AM on 12/07/2011

I used Verizon for 18 years and never had a problem with service, or customer service. I switched to AT&T because all my grown children had it. You can't even compare the 2. Verizon is #1. I am switching back as soon as my contract is up.

[projectnow]

11:44 AM on 12/07/2011

SPRINT SUCKS!! They have the worst EVERYTHING! They are always dropping calls, going into roam, charging you extra and providing the absolutely slowest download times ever. I wish that this survey would have contacted me, my family or the majority of my Sprint friends. Most people aren't happy with Sprint. As soon as my contract is up I'm out. But who do I go to? I was gonna go to AT&T but I'm rethinking that now. And I've heard many complaints about Verizon as well (still Sprint has gotten the most complaints that I've ever heard). All I can say is, STAY AWAY FROM SPRINT!! THE WORST SERVICE EVER!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lindsay Mahoney]

11:57 AM on 12/07/2011

U.S Cellular is the best, I've used, in the past I used Altel and Sprint, and Sprint sucked A$$ big time. U.S Cellular has free incoming calls, texts and picture texts and their nights and weekends start at 7pm!

[King7David]

06:20 PM on 12/07/2011

Yup, had Sprint many moons ago, and would never go back to them...

[Norma Corlis]

11:41 AM on 12/07/2011

I have had AT&t for years my self and have very few problems all most none to speak of really. Have a friend that has Verizon and has all kinds of problems So I will stick to AT&T

[bernamo]

11:38 AM on 12/07/2011

AT&T have the worst customer service and yet people tolerate it. Our server for our internet is AT&T I should learned my lesson I sign up for there High speed Internet the day before the activation our DSL for some reason was not working so I called there 800# it was the voice message came first before you can talk to a real person waited for 30min. finally talked to someone(real Person) and I was told that I was transferred to a wrong department which again I was transferred to a different dept. waited 30min. spoke to a person and she said again I am talking to a different state Florida so she has to tranferred me to California, again waited another 30min. spoke to a person and according to him theres an outaged in hollywood due to storm but I told him I dont live in Hollywood, I live in the bay area, I got so mad hung up the phone. After I hung up the phone waited for couple of hours and start calling again the 800# waited another 30min.but this time I got lucky the person that I spoke to help me with my issue. It took me about 5 hours to find someone who can help me. That really suck. These people shouldnt work as a customer service and technical support if they dont know how to help there customer there should be a law about this service. Thank you

[Gail Parmenter Cooper]

11:35 AM on 12/07/2011

I have had AT & T for years & have had no problems at all, even with customer service. I have been in customer service for 46 yrs so I know how to handle cust. ser. agents & they never argue with me, I always get what I ask for.

[slloyd414]

11:29 AM on 12/07/2011

I've been with AT&T for years and have had very few problems. My mother, on the other hand, has had Verizon and has had one problem after another with dropped calls, failed texts, poor reception, etc.