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Consumers More Critical of Cell Phone Carriers Than Handset MakersUSA TODAY, Aug 16, 2006 NEW YORK -- Motorola, a longtime maker of mobile phones, is one of the most trusted wireless brands, while Sprint and Samsung are among the least trusted by U.S. cellphone customers, according to a recent Forrester Research survey. The survey asked 4,700 consumers across the USA how much they trust major cellphone service and handset brands on a 5-point scale, with 1 being the lowest ("distrusts a lot") and 5 being the highest ("trusts a lot.") Among the big cellphone operators, Verizon Wireless scored 4, matching Cingular and T-Mobile. Sprint rated slightly lower, 3.9. With other factors considered, including the amount of change in trust since last year's survey, Verizon drew an overall grade of C. Cingular's final grade: C-. Sprint came in lowest, D-. Handset makers fared much better, with Palm scoring 4.3 and a B+. Motorola, maker of the Razr and other popular handsets, scored 4.2, for an overall grade of B. LG Electronics and Samsung fared the worst, both scoring 4.0, for overall grades of C- and D-, respectively. The survey's author, Charles Golvin, says consumers seem to be much harder on carriers such as Verizon than they are on manufacturers such as Motorola. "In some ways, the handset makers get a free pass," he says. Why? While consumers love their wireless devices, Golvin says, they hate network outages and don't forget - or forgive - those transgressions easily. Golvin, for one, thinks consumers are being a bit unfair. "The (Motorola) Razr may be an iconic device, but it is the carriers that do the heavy grunt work," he says. "When you look at the complexity of what carriers have to do, and how often they actually succeed, they do a remarkable job," he adds. Golvin says consumers' tough stance is reflective of "how the bad taste" of a negative experience can stick with some consumers. For the big carriers such as Verizon, he says, trying to keep millions of heavy users happy every day is a grinding and thankless task. "It's like being an auto mechanic," Golvin says. "Nobody likes you." Even so, Verizon, Cingular and Sprint have many "aspiring" users: households that plan to buy the brand but aren't current buyers. Cingular, the top carrier with 57.3 million customers, had 5.2 million aspiring users, the survey estimates. No. 2 Verizon (54.8 million now) had 4.7 million and Sprint (51 million) 6.9 million. Even here, however, device brands scored better, with Motorola having the most wannabe users at 12.3 million. Forrester also looked at the number of "at-risk" customers - people who give a brand the lowest scores and are at risk of bolting to another. Verizon and Cingular had the most at-risk customers, with 2.4 million and 1.5 million, respectively. Sprint's pool was about 1 million. Motorola had 400,000. |
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