Vocal Laboratories SectorPulse Report Reveals Photo Finish Between Customer Service At T-Mobile and Verizon

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn., October 26, 2004 - In Vocal Laboratories' most recent quarterly SectorPulse report which measures the quality of customer care T-Mobile and Verizon (VZ: NYSE) customer service ended in a close race.

T-Mobile achieved an "A" ranking in Caller Satisfaction, and a "B" in Call Completion for the second time; while Verizon advanced their Caller Satisfaction grade to an "A" from the last report and achieved another "B" in Call Completion since the last report.

T-Mobile was in the 85th percentile for Caller Satisfaction, while Verizon was just behind at the 82nd percentile. For Call Completion, 86% of T-Mobile callers got the information they wanted on the first call, as compared to 83% of Verizon Wireless customers.

Other results included in this study:

• Cingular received a "C" in both Caller Satisfaction and Call Completion, dropping from a "B" in Call Completion and a "C" in Satisfaction from the last report.
• AT&T Wireless (AWE:NYSE) received a "C" in both Caller Satisfaction and Call Completion, improving its "D" Caller Satisfaction grade from the last report.
• Sprint PCS (PCS:NYSE) achieved a "C" in both Caller Satisfaction and Call Completion, up from a "D" in both categories in the last report.

"Caller frustration is still very common among the five mobile phone companies," said Peter U. Leppik, CEO of VocaLabs. "Even though there is still room for improvement, both T-Mobile and Verizon are clearly leading the pack of mobile phone carriers and doing many things right with their customer service."

Common problem areas reported across companies included difficulty in connecting to an agent, long hold times, and automated systems which were difficult to navigate.

VocaLabs asked study participants to provide details on their customer service experiences. Among many of the shared reports, the difficulty to speak with a live customer service agent was cited many times. A study participant shared her frustration and commented, "...it takes too long for them to finally tell you what button to push to get a customer service representative. Also when it said either enter last 4 digits of social or click pound for used minutes I thought I would get through to the next phase except they gave me my minutes and I STILL had to put in the social to finally go to the next step. This part was not clear on the phone."

Data in this report was gathered between July and September 2004.

About SectorPulse Wireless

VocaLabs SectorPulse reports compare the customer service quality for different companies in the same industry, using data and call recordings from the companies' customers.

VocaLabs has recruited over 80,000 individuals to provide feedback on customer service experiences, from which we drew the participants for this study. VocaLabs panelists who are customers of one of the companies included in this study were asked to participate by having their customer service calls recorded and completing a survey after the call.

An Executive Summary and SectorPulse Wireless data report are available by subscription. Please contact Jessica Ament at jament@vocalabs.com

About Vocal Laboratories

Vocal Laboratories delivers statistically reliable feedback on the user friendliness of telephone based customer service whether delivered via traditional call centers or self-serve technology. Clients are end user enterprises, call center consultants, application providers and equipment vendors. Only VocaLabs has the unique methodology to evaluate a customer contact application at any stage of development from prototype through existing services quickly, cost effectively and with maximum accuracy.