Pay TV, Internet and wireless service providers aren’t exactly America’s most beloved business categories. In fact, customers seem to love complaining about them constantly, and T-Mobile has found tremendous success by separating its practices from those of its rivals and portraying itself as the “Uncarrier.” Part of the reason people dislike wireless carriers and ISPs so much may be the difficulties they often experience when dealing with their customer care departments, and now AT&T and Time Warner Cable have been ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in a questionnaire asking subscribers which companies have the worst customer service in the country.
The unscientific questionnaire, conducted on Ranker and unearthed by DSLReports.com, lists 50 large U.S. companies and asks visitors to vote on which among them have the worst customer service. At the top of the list with 483 votes at the time of this writing is AT&T, which is followed by Time Warner Cable with 317 votes in the No. 2 spot. Bank of America, Walmart and American Airlines round out the top-5.
Interestingly, AT&T was just ranked highest in J.D. Power’s wireless purchase satisfaction survey for the second consecutive time, and it was also awarded the top honor in the firm’s 2013 customer service study.
As for other U.S. wireless carriers and ISPs, Comcast is ranked No. 6, Verizon is ranked No. 21, Sprint is No. 23 and Frontier is No. 38.
Updated for clarification and to add a note about recent J.D. Power surveys.
