J.D. Power Business Wireline Satisfaction: AT&T Wins Big Again, CenturyLink Falls

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.