Here is a fun experiment; Google industries or companies with the worst customer service. Any guesses at what industry comes out on top ?
Outside of government, telecommunications leads by an overwhelming margin with an Ipsos survey in 2018 having 38% of the US population saying this sector has the worst customer service in the country. (Healthcare was next with 18%… quite the drop)
Leading the top 5 industries most hated by customers according the the American Customer Satisfaction Index ? Cable Providers, Internet Providers and Wireless Phone Service Providers.
“Hated industries. You know the ones—the industries that customers avoid dealing with as much as possible. The places customers go out of their way to avoid talking to or interacting with. These are the companies that have bad reputations of dishonesty and not treating their customers fairly. The sad part is that most of these industries are nearly unavoidable, which means at some point, customers have to take the plunge and interact with them.”
Do you think this only applies to the USA ? Nope, it seems to be just as prevalent in Canada according to the Huffington Post, where telecom had the worst reputation among all industries in Canada. Even worse than oil companies !
So why do people love to hate their telecom service providers ? Could it be a combination of
– High Prices
– Unreliable Service
– Poor Customer Service
– Slow or unreliable products/services
– Time and effort to resolve issues via contact centres
– Unhelpful agents
– Surprise Extra fees, charges, overages
– (add your 2 cents here)
This is not new. I have spent my entire adult life in this industry , I’ve been in telecom for over 36 years since graduating from Engineering at UWaterloo with almost all of it spent on the competitive side. The side challenging the oligopoly , the handful of companies that control over 90% of almost every telecom service market in Canada; TV, Internet, Phone etc In those 36 years it has been a constant refrain I heard from consumers, friends and family.
Since Canadians love to hate their service providers, why don’t they demand better ? Why not support the competitive players that are challenging the oligopoly that are providing better service, at better prices with innovative products ? Why not demand more ?
Or is it just more fun to complain ? What do you think ?
