Awards in the telecom industry are kind of like company logos — everyone’s got them and they all think theirs is the best of the lot. Case in point: AT&T just posted a lengthy self-congratulatory rant about its newly won J.D. Power award, which it says is clearly more important than any other award that a certain other mobile company may have recently received. And in light of all the shots T-Mobile constantly fires at its rivals, AT&T used the opportunity to take some not-so-subtle jabs at the Uncarrier.
The award, which indicates the top ranking in J.D. Power’s “2017 U.S. Wireless Customer Care Full-Service Performance Study, Volume 1,” is what AT&T insists is the “gold standard” because it comes from J.D. Power. The study measured the satisfaction customers have with the customer service tools provided by each of the major mobile carriers, including online chat assistance and phone support. It’s just one of many telecom awards the firm hands out each year, but it’s obviously one of the biggest and is pretty important to AT&T.
“Sure, everyone claims that they’re the best,” AT&T explains, totally missing the irony. “And they might hide some numbers or manipulate a chart to make themselves look better. But a J.D. Power award is the gold standard. There’s no confusion. Customers know it stands for excellence.”
That’s of course in contrast to T-Mobile’s recent customer satisfaction award, which was issued by Nielsen Mobile Insights, and apparently doesn’t mean quite as much as a J.D. Power award — at least, not according to AT&T. J.D. Power has been the standard by which the industry has been measured for years though, so it’s obviously a solid honor to add to AT&T’s collection.
