In WATPA's consumer advocacy role, I found Interactive Week's evaluation of
the major Internet Service Providers of interest.
At the end of this message, you'll find some highlights. See the full
article for all the text and charts. It is located at:
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/filters/lede.html
Regards,
Norm
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> What Customers Want
>
> Not surprisingly, Internet service customers want - service. The chart
that summarizes the relative importance of attributes that Internet
services customers consider when selecting an ISP shows that reliable
service (percentage of time the connection is up) tops the list of
attributes customers look for. Almost every ISP customer surveyed - a hefty
96 percent - list service reliability as either critical or very important
when choosing an ISP; customers want their Internet service to be up and
running when they need it.
>
> Service performance (as reflected by delay, packet loss and congestion,
for example) ranked a close second, with 93 percent of customers surveyed
listing service performance as critical or very important when selecting an
ISP.
>
> Consistent with the service theme, technical support placed third in the
ranking, with 88 percent of all respondents listing the speed and
proficiency of diagnosing and solving problems as critical or very
important factors when choosing an ISP. If there are problems with the
network backbone or a customer's connection, customers want the problems
fixed immediately.
>
> Price of service ranked fourth, with 86 percent of customers citing this
criterion as critical or very important. Interestingly, however, the issue
of price only slightly edged out yet another service-related factor for the
fourth-place slot; that is, the competence and knowledge of the customer
support and technical support staff placed fifth, with 85 percent of
customers citing its value.
>
> It is significant that the relative importance placed on price depends on
whether a customer's primary access is via a dial-up or dedicated
connection.
>
> Among dial-up customers, problem resolution and price tied for third, and
customer support placed a clear fourth; for dedicated-connection customers,
on the other hand, customer support was No. 3, and price was No. 4, with
only 1 percentage point between them.
>
> What Customers Are Getting
>
> Which service providers are doing the best job in the areas that matter
most? The top performers include AT&T WorldNet, GTE Internetworking
(formerly BBN Planet), MCI Communications Corp., Sprint Communications Co.
and UUnet Technologies Inc. Although other ISPs rated well above average in
individual areas, these five service providers most consistently received
strong customer satisfaction ratings. However, it is important to note that
some smaller ISPs were able to hold their own against their larger
counterparts; but, because the survey sample sizes from these ISPs were too
small to be statistically significant, we were unable to accurately rank
them. (We hope to change this by mailing more questionnaires for next
year's survey.)
>
> What follows is a summary of how well 10 ISPs, for which we have
significant data, fared with customers based on the top tier of attributes.
>
> Service Reliability
>
> GTE/BBN Planet and UUnet rated as the top performers for service
reliability; 76 percent rated UUnet and GTE/BBN as delivering excellent or
very good reliability. The average score for GTE/BBN, on a scale of 1 to 5,
where 5 means excellent and 1 means poor, was a 4.2; UUnet's average was a
4.0. Seventy-one percent of those evaluating AT&T WorldNet rate the service
provider highly, with a mean rating of 3.9, followed with Sprint Internet
Solutions with 59 percent, then EarthLink Network Inc. with 56 percent and
internetMCI with 53 percent of those describing the service as above
average. Sprint and MCI both have mean ratings of 3.6. EarthLink's mean
rating was 3.4. Based on this rating system, only 18 percent rated America
Online Inc.'s service reliability as either excellent or very good. AOL's
average score was a 2.4.
>
> Service/Performance
>
> UUnet, GTE/BBN and AT&T rated highly in network performance with respect
to delay, packet loss and capacity. Seventy percent of those rating UUnet
rated it as excellent or very good, followed by GTE/BBN with 67 percent and
AT&T with 66 percent. The service performance ratings for Sprint, EarthLink
and MCI were close, with 53 percent, 53 percent and 52 percent ratings of
excellent or very good, respectively. Both GTE/BBN and UUnet captured
average scores of 3.9; AT&T's was a 3.8. MCI and Sprint both had mean
ratings of 3.5. Only 13 percent rated AOL as above average in service
performance; AOL's mean rating was a 2.2.
>
> Problem Diagnosis And Repair
>
> UUnet and AT&T fared well for speed and proficiency of problem diagnosis
and repair, with 57 percent and 54 percent of respondents, respectively,
rating them as excellent or very good in this area. MCI and GTE/BBN follow,
with 50 percent and 47 percent, respectively, followed by Sprint at 44
percent. AOL received a 13 percent rating. UUnet came out on top with a
mean rating of 3.8, with GTE/BBN and AT&T tying at 3.6, followed by MCI at
3.5 and Sprint and PSINet Inc. at 3.3.
>
> Price
>
> Not surprisingly, the data show that price and performance trade-offs
apply to ISPs. Those ISPs that rate highest in price for level of service
needed are largely a different set of players than those that rate highest
for reliability and performance. Netcom On-Line Communication Services Inc.
was positioned on top here, with 50 percent of respondents rating it as a
low-cost provider, and 50 percent of those rating it indicating that
Netcom's price for the service needed was excellent or very good. PSINet
and EarthLink followed closely, both with 49 percent, and MCI with 48
percent. However, 39 percent of those rating AOL indicate that AOL's prices
are excellent or very good.
>
> Customer/Technical Support Staff
>
> UUnet and PSINet rated highly for the knowledge and competence of their
customer service and technical support staff, with 61 percent and 60
percent of respondents, respectively, rating them as excellent or very
good. This is compared with AT&T's 56 percent, GTE/BBN's 55 percent and
MCI's 47 percent. In terms of mean ratings, UUnet and GTE/BBN tied at 3.8,
followed by AT&T and PSINet at 3.6 and MCI at 3.5.
>
> Overall Satisfaction
>
> Taking all things into consideration, TeleChoice developed an aggregate
customer satisfaction score. This score combines data about how important
each factor is to customers as a whole with the ratings that each ISP
received. The resulting customer satisfaction score ranks UUnet first,
followed by AT&T, GTE/BBN, MCI and Sprint. PSINet heads the next five ISPs,
followed by Netcom, EarthLink, CompuServe Corp. and AOL.......
>