VocaLabs SectorPulse Reports Awards Verizon Wireless Highest In Customer Service Quality

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn., January 21, 2004 - Vocal Laboratories, the authority in measuring customers' experiences, issued its SectorPulse report for mobile phones, comparing the quality of customer service for AT&T Wireless (AWE:NYSE), Cingular, SprintPCS (PCS:NYSE) and Verizon Wireless (VZ:NYSE), using data and call recordings from the companies' customers. Verizon Wireless came out on top in this study.

There was a wide range in customer satisfaction, with Verizon Wireless the best overall, and AT&T Wireless the worst. Verizon Wireless was awarded an "A" in Caller Satisfaction. Verizon scored 43 in Caller Satisfaction compared to Cingular at 25, Sprint PCS at 14 and AT&T Wireless at -5.

"The four companies differed on their ability to handle customers' questions. Verizon Wireless successfully answered customers' questions 87% of the time on the first call, while the other three companies only managed to handle between 70% and 73% of customer questions on the first call," said Peter U. Leppik, CEO of VocaLabs.

• Caller frustration for each of the companies was 29% at AT&T Wireless, 15% at Cingular, 17% at SprintPCS and 12% at Verizon Wireless
• The average call lengths for the four companies were AT&T Wireless at 6:41 minutes, Cingular at 5:32 minutes, SprintPCS at 7:08 minutes and Verizon Wireless at 4:34 minutes.
• The automation rate was 22% at AT&T Wireless, 25% at Cingular, 20% at SprintPCS and 33% at Verizon Wireless

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

A study participant said, "There is too much automation. If I need to speak with a person I would like to have that option up front." Another study participant said, "When I called, after getting through the automated part to get to a real person, the estimated wait time was 20 minutes, but I actually was on hold for 38 minutes...when the young man finally came on the line, however, he solved the problem immediately."

"Based on our analysis of the data, Verizon Wireless came out on top in this study. The other three companies could likely see substantial operational and satisfaction improvement by emulating Verizon in this regard," said Leppik.

About the SectorPulse Wireless study VocaLabs has recruited over 40,000 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 calls recorded and completing a survey after the call.

The Caller Satisfaction benchmark measures the customer's perception of service quality. The letter grades are based on a company's raw score as compared to all companies in the VocaLabs database, and range from A to D.

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

About Vocal Laboratories

VocaLabs solves the need for cost effective and statistically accurate feedback about client care Speech Recognition, IVR, human agent, and tone applications. Our clients are end user enterprises, call center consultants, application providers and equipment vendors. We have the unique ability to evaluate a customer contact application at any stage of development, from prototype to live in the field using a large and demographically diverse pool of panelists.