This is what I look like after dealing with customer service.
Every year since 2007, MSN Money has compiled a list of the top ten companies with the worst customer service. I only stumbled upon this recently, so I figured that I should share and highlight their findings. They haven’t published their 2010 results yet, however, so you’ll have to settle with just their 2007, 2008, and 2009 results.
MSN Money partners with a polling and market research company in order to gather their data for the top ten lists. About 3,000 or so people are randomly chosen to participate in the survey. Each person rates 145 companies based on what their experience was with their customer service, on a scale of “excellent” to “poor” to “I haven’t had an interaction with this company’s customer service.”
Judging from who’s on the list, I’m not surprised at all that these companies have terrible customer service. Although, it’s also interesting to see who ranked highly in customer service, and which companies received a lot of mixed responses.
2007
2007 Results
The 2007 survey shows Sprint at the top of the list, with 40% of respondents saying that Sprint’s service is poor. I definitely agree; I used to have Sprint service back in 2005, and I had some terrible experiences with their customer service. T-Mobile, (the service I switched to) on the other hand, received a J.D. Power Award in 2007 for being ranked highest in wireless customer care performance. Verizon is 8th on this list, and they’ve come along way since then. Verizon won the J.D. Power Award in 2010 for wireless customer care performance.
2008
2008 Results
AOL was rated as having the worst customer service in the 2008 survey. Considering how infamously difficult it is to cancel AOL service, I’m not surprised. Abercrombie & Fitch is surprising, though. I don’t shop at A&F, but it’s surprising to see a clothing store get ranked worse than a cable company.
In contrast, Nordstrom, Trader Joe’s, and Google came out on top as having the best customer service on this list, as shown in the full list of companies in the survey. Apple and Amazon were ranked very highly as well.
2009
2009 Results
In the most recent survey, AOL was yet again champion as having worst customer service. Actually, the top three didn’t budge one bit: AOL, Comcast, and Sprint ranked the same from the previous year. Trader Joe’s, Nordstrom, Amazon, and Apple remain in the top 10 for best customer service. Take a look at the full list to see how other companies ranked.
2010
MSN Money hasn’t published the 2010 survey results yet, but judging from when the previous survey results were published, they should show the results in a month or so. I don’t think the top 10 will change much, but it’ll be interesting to see how the rankings of the other companies will change from year to year. For example, when T-Mobile and Google launched the Nexus One, a lot of people weren’t happy with how customer service was handled. Also, Sprint’s touting of their new 4G network, as well as their lineup of cool, new phones has surely attracted many new customers. So who’ll be ranked best and worst this year? We’ll have to wait and see.
Tiger photo by tambako
Infographics from MSN Money
