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What the Rolling Stones belted out 35 years ago could well echo what more and more DSL customers are saying these days: they can't get no satisfaction. Or at least not as much.
Analyst firms eyeing the market are just now starting to examine customer satisfaction as a key indicator, and the reports are still few and far between. While the business and mainstream media have published a raft of stories and opinions about bad DSL experiences, the stories seem to rely primarily on anecdotal reports.
Nevertheless, many analysts do note a marked downward trend in their customer ratings for DSL service in the past six months.
It is a market that has drastically changed in just one year. In February 2000, a Parks' Associates survey found satisfaction was the rule for the Bell operators and cable services. But as it readies an update for the first quarter of this year, the names and the results will likely be drastically different, according to Michael Greeson, consulting analyst for the project.
In early 2000, the Parks' survey found that Verizon Communications-then Bell Atlantic Corp.-scored the lowest at just 56.7 percent approval of its DSL service, while the former U S West-now Qwest scored the highest at 83.4 percent.
Greeson points out these results reflect an early market where installation delays were not as severe. After a summer of high demand, over-hyped service rollouts and mounting customer frustration, "it hasn't been nearly that glamorous," Greeson says.
"I suspect we will see a downturn," he says. "We are going to be seeing a very different satisfaction rating. They are just making promises they can't keep. Customers are waiting two, three and even four months for service and when they get it, it isn't what they expected."
And consumers aren't likely to get much help if they call their provider with a problem, either. "I have been struck by the disregard for customer service by broadband providers," Greeson says. "There is almost a disease of hubris on their part, just because they have a service contract with a particular group of people."
Kirk Parsons, director of telecommunications at J.D. Power and Associates, agrees the focus among DSL carriers is still on getting the service, rather than what service customers get.
In a September survey, the marketing information service found cable operators scored better than DSL in customer service and support, primarily because of the added layer of resellers. In the survey, cable modem users gave their service a 96 out of 100 for customer care and technical support, and a 95 on e-mail services. DSL users gave their services only an 83 for both categories.
"A lot of these problems have to do with installation," Parsons says. "At least right now we see that is the weakest link compared to cable modems."
But he is quick to point out these problems are typical in a still-young market. "They are all worried about getting the product out," Parsons says. "That's where all of the financial resources are going. As we are finding, what you see as an industry matures, in the beginning it is really product focused-making sure it works. Once that is established it moves toward more service issues."
Because there are still too few high-speed users to make a significant market share, J.D. Power isn't planning any broadband customer surveys for a while, Parsons says. But in general, when it comes to customer satisfaction "for high-speed right now it's still pretty dicey," he notes.
Daedalus Venture Group LLC's research unit, meanwhile, finds a marked difference between business and consumer accounts in a recent survey focusing on provisioning of service, according to Adam Needles, principal and director for the research unit.
"Businesses are relatively happy with the services they get, particularly from the CLECs," Needles says. Although the competitive DSL carriers have been plagued by provisioning delays, once the connection is established they are maintaining the customer service contact "that quite frankly the ILECs have lost."
On the consumer side, when it comes to installation efforts, "we definitely see some lower numbers," Needles says. "We believe about half of the customers are now openly dissatisfied with their installation experience. That's markedly different from comparisons we've done with provisioning for cable modem service."
Despite the slough of stories detailing DSL installation nightmares, it may not be turning away many new customers. In November, Harris Interactive released a quarterly survey of 69,000 Internet users, finding a mere 7 percent of narrowband subscribers planning to upgrade to broadband fear that DSL or cable modem service would be difficult to install or set up.
"I think that is just a lack of information or a lack of awareness-people are not really paying attention to it," says David Tremblay, director of technology research at Harris.
The survey did not break results down by carrier, something Harris intends to do with future reports, Tremblay says. He adds that up to now, those who have bitten on the broadband hook have tended to be more techno-savvy, so they expect initial problems and are more forgiving.
"I think for it to get to the mainstream, those things need to be worked out," he warns. "Companies providing service are going to have to get their acts together or there are going to be problems."
Greeson agrees, saying if broadband service rises from novelty to mainstream, service providers' attitudes will have to change.
"You can no longer hit and run," he says. You have to build a customer relationship if you expect to still be doing business in five years."
And service providers that don't...they may not always get what they want.
Caption:
Fulfilling orders and installation has been a service issue for both the cable modem and DSL industries.
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