J.D. Power and Associates released their 2009 Canadian Wireless Customer Satisfaction Study today, and I found the results quite interesting.
Not surprisingly Virgin Mobile took the award in Post and Pre-paid wireless service. We’ve had my wife’s account with them for a few years now and I’ve got nothing to complain about.
It wasn’t much of a surprise either to see Apple’s iPhone take the smart phone award but I was a bit shocked that RIM’s Blackberry wasn’t riding up Apple’s ass and honking to pass! In fact no one came close; but I was happy to see that Nokia was in second place since I’ve always been fond of their phones.
I think the most important thing the article says is “The anticipation of new entrants into the Canadian wireless market has led consumers to develop more of a ‘wait and see’ mentality.”
I believe that’s fundamentally true, and coupled with the anticipation of season specials a lot of people probably held back their third quarter (July, August & September) purchases – normally a busy season as kids go back to school – but I think the fourth quarter will make up for it. I’m not sure a lot of people are going to wait until all the new entrants get up and running – they’re going to look at what Public Mobile, WIND, DAVE and Globalive have posted on their web sites and make their decision to either commit or keep waiting – but that patience will only last so long and a couple sweet deals from an incumbent could be disaster for a new entrant with a slow roll-out.
Cross-posted on Cameron-Schultz at J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Canadian Wireless Customer Satisfaction Study
Comments
7 responses to “J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Canadian Wireless Customer Satisfaction Study”
The JD Power data looks odd, as you can see from the on this Boy Genius Report that clearly shows RIM is still and the lead and Apple is only starting to come close in the smartphone market.
Public Mobile is CDMA so they're out.(WTH were they thinking ?!?!?) WIND Mobile will be available anywhere BUT in Qubec, so they're out too. (BTW, WIND = Globallive) Same thing applies to DAVE, they'll be available everywhere except in Quebec.
So what about Quebec, you ask ? We get Videotron. Yeah. That about says it all : Quebec gets the shaft.
Adi
Actually the BGR data concurs, look at the satisfaction rating (third graph) and the iPhone is ahead of the Bb. Although RIM is ahead of Nokia.
Actually the third graph is kind of silly: Apple only really has one phone and any point in time (just more storage) and they are comparing it the entire flotilla of RIM's product line which includes some really questionable devices like the Pearl Flip and the Storm not to mentionthe older devices like the one in your pocket right now. I'm also pretty sure that a customer satisfaction survey was conduct by simply saying “What do you think of Apple's Service…” where half the grandma's or street folk they asked probably didn't even hear the phone part of the question and simply answered as if they were talking of Apple as a whole (They've been rated no 1 for service year after year for a while). Whereas the closest interaction most BlackBerry users have with RIM customer service is with their very own corporate IT dept., and we all know how much fun that can be.
The 3rd graph's title is “Customers are satisfied with their current CELL PHONE.” So one would have to assume that only iPhone users responded that they were satisfied (or not) with their iPhone. Similarly for the other phones. Good thing the telcos insist on 3-year contracts here, or everyone would have an iPhone by now!!!
I had been contract free since 2001 when i first got my Ericsson T28w with Fido. It was good. All i had to do is call up Fido every 2 years and they would give me a phone for free or with a HUGE discount just because i was still with them AND i would still be without contract. Then came 2004 and Robbers bought Fido out. It all started going downhill from there: CityFido dissapeared over night, international SMS was no longer included in the SMS plans, fees started increasing left and right and 3 year contracts became the norm if you wanted ANY sort of phone upgrade. Oh and those Fido dollars that i've been accumulation over the years became utterly useless as Fido no longer had any high end phones. (Much respect the the SE P800 and P900)
The conclusion here is that the 3 big incumbents were allowed to buy out Fido instead of having a third party buy them out and this lead to the current situation we have today : Robbers, Hell and Bellus taking advantage of us.
Adi
I had been contract free since 2001 when i first got my Ericsson T28w with Fido. It was good. All i had to do is call up Fido every 2 years and they would give me a phone for free or with a HUGE discount just because i was still with them AND i would still be without contract. Then came 2004 and Robbers bought Fido out. It all started going downhill from there: CityFido dissapeared over night, international SMS was no longer included in the SMS plans, fees started increasing left and right and 3 year contracts became the norm if you wanted ANY sort of phone upgrade. Oh and those Fido dollars that i've been accumulation over the years became utterly useless as Fido no longer had any high end phones. (Much respect the the SE P800 and P900)
The conclusion here is that the 3 big incumbents were allowed to buy out Fido instead of having a third party buy them out and this lead to the current situation we have today : Robbers, Hell and Bellus taking advantage of us.
Adi