Airline travelers and cable television subscribers are growing more disenchanted, while cellphone users and hospital patients are giving higher marks to their service providers, a new study says.
Overall, customer satisfaction is improving at a slower rate than in previous months, according to a University of Michigan study to be released today.
United Airlines, the largest carrier at Denver International Airport, was the lowest-scoring airline, with Delta Air Lines coming in next to last. Both carriers recently went through Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“I think that process took so much out of them in terms of cost cutting that they don’t have enough resources to serve their passengers well,” said Claes Fornell, director of the University of Michigan research center that compiled data for the study.
Curt Wagner of Littleton said he recently was frustrated by United’s customer service.
“It’s hard to get in touch with anybody in customer service; then when you do get in touch with anybody in customer service, you get forwarded to their India customer service center,” Wagner said. “I realize that companies need to be efficient and they need to cut costs – I understand that – but it seems like they have sacrificed customer service to cut costs.”
United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said United is “committed to doing a better job at giving customers the service they expect, and work is underway to make this a priority.”
The University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index is based on surveys during the first three months of the year of about 20,000 customers, who were asked about their expectations for, approval of and loyalty to a company’s product or service. The results are entered into a statistical computation to give the companies a score based on a 100-point scale.
United received a score of 56, and the airline industry had an aggregate score of 63. Only the cable and satellite- TV industry scored lower, with an aggregate of 62. The national aggregate score for all industries was 75.2.
Aggregate scores for each industry are calculated by using the average of each company’s score, weighted by the revenue of each company. Industries are grouped into sectors, and the sectors’ scores are used to compute the national aggregate score, weighted by each sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product.
Philadelphia-based Comcast, the dominant cable company in Colorado with 810,000 subscribers, ranked second to last among cable and satellite-TV providers with a score of 56.
Fort Collins resident Ken Campbell, 47, said he deals with constant Comcast outages, particularly with digital TV channels.
He said these problems have forced him to go through 12 digital converter boxes.
“It’s been an ongoing problem for the past two years that seems to get more and more out of hand,” Campbell said.
He said he stays with Comcast because “we don’t get the choice of having anybody else up here.”
That, Fornell said, is the reason cable companies continue to see increased earnings despite plummeting service quality. “Consumer choice is fairly restricted here; otherwise we wouldn’t see this situation with rising prices and a decline in quality of service.”
Comcast is working to improve its service, which includes increasing the number of technicians who work on the weekends and offering shorter appointment windows, said spokeswoman Cindy Parsons.
“Clearly, we’re not pleased with the results, and we know we need to work harder to increase customer satisfaction,” she said.
Douglas County-based Echo Star Communications, which offers satellite-TV service through its Dish Network, tied for first with rival DirecTV in the pay- TV category with a score of 67.
Denver-based Qwest had a score of 72, tied for first with Verizon Communications among land-line phone companies. The industry’s aggregate score was 70. The result caps a remarkable turnaround for Qwest, which ranked last in service in the first quarter of 2002 with a score of 56.
“That can’t happen unless it starts at the top,” said Paula Kruger, executive vice president of mass markets for Qwest.
Months after replacing Joe Nacchio as Qwest chief executive in June 2002, Dick Notebaert changed the slogan to “Spirit of Service” from “Ride the Light.”
Hospital satisfaction hit an all-time high with a score of 77. Better value for services, more treatments and procedures and hospital initiatives to improve quality contributed to the higher score, according to the report.
The survey is in its 14th year, and results are released quarterly. Customers ages 18 to 84 are randomly selected and surveyed by phone. Industries measured in the first quarter are land-line and wireless phone companies, cable and satellite-TV providers, airlines, hotels, express delivery companies, computer software firms, utilities, health care providers and restaurants.
