J.D. Power Business Wireline Satisfaction: AT&T Wins Big Again, CenturyLink Falls
Verizon won the small business category again, and Cox made a strong showing.
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J.D. Power queried 4,331 businesses about their experiences buying voice and data services. The firm conducted the survey in April and May.
Customers rated their carriers based on six categories; cost, communications, sales/account representatives, billing, performance/reliability and customer service.
J.D. Power broke the respondents into three categories: large enterprise, medium business and small business.
AT&T continues to hold a commanding lead over its peers in the biggest category. Ma Bell scored an 882 satisfaction score, the highest any company has ever scored.
Verizon continues to hold steady with a score of 866. Meanwhile, the biggest faller was CenturyLink (Lumen), which dropped from third last year (836) to sixth (799).
Cox entered the large enterprise category for the first time and made a huge splash, finishing third.
J.D. Power defines large enterprises as containing 500 or more customers.
AT&T led the medium business category for the second straight year, but the gap narrowed. Verizon trailed it by only five points.
In the meantime, Cox continued its improvement and finished third. It increased its satisfaction score from 790 to 816.
Comcast ticked up from 795 to 805, while Spectrum and CenturyLink both went backward. CenturyLink in particular dropped 48 points to 758.
J.D. Power defines medium business as companies of 20-499 employees. It formerly called this category small/medium business.
Verizon pulled out a decisive win in the smallest category. It beat out Comcast by 22 points.
In the meantime, Comcast scored its second consecutive silver medal in this category.
With the exception of Verizon, every company improved their satisfaction score in the small business category. Frontier and CenturyLink remain last and second-to-last, but both added at least 40 points.
J.D. Power defines small businesses as companies with fewer than 20 employees. It formerly called this category “very small business.”
We graphed out the last eight years of the study’s large enterprise category, and the chart shows an upward trend across the board.
Most companies scored under 700 in 2013, but almost all have grown to over 800. However, CenturyLink dipped to 799 this year.
Frontier
Small Business: 7th
Medium Business: N/A
Large Enterprise: N/A
The Connecticut-based company finished last in the small business category, but it managed to improve by 40 points.
The company, which recently emerged from bankruptcy, is banking on fiber growth in the upcoming year.
CenturyLink
Small Business: 6th
Medium Business: 6th
Large Enterprise: 6th
CenturLink took a step back in this year’s rankings. It only improved in the small business category, where its satisfaction score rose from 701 to 745.
Lumen, CenturyLink’s enterprise unit, recently signed a deal to bring Microsoft Azure capabililties onto its platform. It also agreed to combine its edge computing with T-Mobile’s 5G network.
Spectrum Business
Small Business: 5th
Medium Business: 5th
Large Enterprise: 5th
Spectrum largely stayed where it was in 2020. It tied its previous large enterprise score of 822 while dropping 14 points in the medium business category. It also moved up 18 points for small businesses.
Check out what Michelle Kadlecek, vice president of the Spectrum Enterprise Channel Partner Program, told us about her plans for the partner program.
Comcast Business
Small Business: 2nd
Medium Business: 4th
Large Enterprise: 4th
Comcast enjoyed improvements in all three categories, and it pressed a little closer to catching Verizon in the small business category.
Comcast has been fine-tuning its ActiveCore SDN platform, most recently improving its security and AI capabilities. On the channel side, it recently hired longtime AT&T channel veteran Kaylina Rossi.
Cox Business
Small Business: 4th
Medium Business: 3rd
Large Enterprise: 3rd
The Atlanta-based MSO took a big step forward in the last year. After landing last in the medium business category in 2020, Cox leapfrogged three companies in 2021. It qualified for the enterprise category for the first time and didn’t disappoint, finishing third.
John Muscarella, Cox Business‘ executive director of national indirect sales channels, spoke to us about the company’s efforts to attract nontraditional partners to its program.
Verizon
Small Business: 1st
Medium Business: 2nd
Large Enterprise: 2nd
Nothing has changed rankings-wise for Verizon. The carrier cut its deficit to AT&T in the medium business category from 23 to five, and took a resounding victory in the small business field.
Check out what Verizon’s channel chief told us about her vision for teaming direct and indirect sales forces with one another.
AT&T
Small Business: 3rd
Medium Business: 1st
Large Enterprise: 1st
Just like Verizon, AT&T repeated its positioning from last year. The company scored the highest customer satisfaction rating ever, at 882 in the large enterprise category.
AT&T recently made headlines with its decision to outsource its 5G core to Microsoft Azure.
AT&T
Small Business: 3rd
Medium Business: 1st
Large Enterprise: 1st
Just like Verizon, AT&T repeated its positioning from last year. The company scored the highest customer satisfaction rating ever, at 882 in the large enterprise category.
AT&T recently made headlines with its decision to outsource its 5G core to Microsoft Azure.
Large enterprises are choosing AT&T as their preferred wireline carrier for the fourth year in a row in the latest J.D. Power rankings.
J.D. Power on Thursday revealed its 2021 U.S. Business Wireline Satisfaction study, which shows improvement across the board for telco providers. The average enterprise and small business customers both reported higher satisfaction.
J.D. Power’s Ian Greenblatt
“As restrictions ease, business customers continue to be highly satisfied with their broadband service’s alignment to their expectations,” said Ian Greenblatt, managing director at J.D. Power.
AT&T won two categories, while Verizon won the third. Cox Business turned heads by leapfrogging to score third place in two categories, including enterprise. On the other hand, CenturyLink (known in the enterprise segment as Lumen) struggled, losing footing in two categories.
The study also features Comcast Business, Spectrum Business and Frontier Business.
The study found an interesting trend about how customers wanted to communicate. Although respondents said they prefer email as their means of interfacing with the carrier, phone communication leads to higher satisfaction.
“If customer service representatives continue on their current path while maintaining focus on email, considering it is the preferred method of communication, then satisfaction will continue on this upward trend,” Greenblatt said.
Scroll through the 12 images above to see the precise rankings and a breakdown of how the companies have improved over the last eight years.
You can also check out last year’s business wireline rankings.
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