According to survey by J.D. Power, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless rank highest in a tie among the five largest wireless service providers in creating a positive experience for customers who contact their provider for service or assistance. Both providers perform particularly well across all factors, especially in the areas of customer service representatives, hold times and resolving inquiries with one contact. ALLTEL follows T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless in the rankings.The study also finds several key wireless customer care patterns:

• The average number of contacts to resolve an inquiry by phone is 1.76—a decrease from 1.94 from Volume 1 of the study, which was released in January.
• Among customers who contact their provider, 74 percent do so by telephone and 22 percent do so through their provider’s retail store. E-mail/Internet contacts account for just 4 percent of customer contacts.

• The average initial reported hold time on calls to the customer service department is 3.59 minutes—an increase from 3.44 minutes in 2005. In comparison, it takes an average of more than 8 minutes before speaking to a representative at one of the provider’s retail stores.
• Nearly one-half of customers (45%) contact their provider with a service inquiry that is billing related, and 51 percent of these contacts can be attributed to incorrect charges. An additional 31 percent of all customer care inquiries are call-quality related.

The 2006 Wireless Customer Care Performance Study-Volume 2 is based on responses from more than 11,430 wireless customers who contacted customer care within the past year. The results are from the past two reporting waves, conducted in January and March 2006. The 2007 Volume 1 report will be issued in January 2007. Overall Customer Care Index Rankings 1. T-Mobile - 104
2. Verizon Wireless - 104
3. ALLTEL - 99
4. Cingular - 95
5. Sprint Nextel - 95 Note: Industry Average - 99