Subject: [NEXTEL-1] 40 Largest Telecom, Networking Firms Ranked on How They Treat Online Customers

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 23:04:53 -0400

40 Largest Telecom, Networking Firms Ranked on How They Treat Online
Customers

Mar 29, 2004

The Customer Respect Group, an international research and consulting
firm that focuses on how corporations treat their customers online, has
just released the results of its Spring 2004 Online Customer Respect
Study of 40 telecommunications and networking firms that rank among the
countries largest 1,000 companies.

Overall, MCI scored highest, while CenturyTel scored lowest. The
industry sector's average score was the highest among the five studied
to date (out of 14) in 2004 by The Customer Respect Group.

The study is the only one of its kind that brings objective measure to
the analysis of corporate performance from an online customer's
perspective. It assigns a Customer Respect Index (CRI) rating to each
company on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest achievable
score. The Customer Respect Index is a qualitative and quantitative
in-depth analysis and independent measure of a customer's online
experience when interacting with companies via the Internet.

By interviewing a representative sample of the adult Internet
population, and by analyzing more than ,1000 Web sites across a spectrum
of industries in detail, The Customer Respect Group has determined the
attributes that combine to create the entire online customer experience.
These attributes have been grouped together and measured as indicators
of Simplicity (ease of navigation), Privacy (respects customer privacy),
Attitude (customer-focus of site), Transparency (open and honest
policies), Responsiveness (quick and thorough responses to inquiries)
and Principles (values and respects customer data). Combined they
measure a company's overall Customer Respect.

Of the 40 companies audited for this report, 39 have privacy policies.
This figure compares very well with the 90 percent figure from last
year's report on the 100 largest US companies. The sector's Transparency
scores are also very good. The 7.9 CRI shows that these companies
endeavor to explain their policies fully and clearly. There are,
however, several areas in which sector firms could improve:

Principles scores were the second lowest measured in the study. Research
revealed that a shocking 33 percent of companies admit that they share
customer data with unaffiliated third parties without seeking customers'
explicit permission.  In addition, in the areas of Responsiveness
(lowest scoring area), nearly half of surveyed firms did not respond to
all inquiries submitted by researchers.

The highest ranked organization within the sector was MCI (9.0 out of
10), while the lowest was CenturyTel at 4.2. The sector's average was
7.0. Beyond these scores, the report conveys, in great detail,
improvement opportunities for each company. The sector's Spring 2004
ranking is as follows:

Telecom & Networking Firm

Overall CRI
MCI
9.0
AT&T Wireless Services, Inc.
8.8
Cablevision Systems Corp.
8.6
Frontier
8.6
Verizon Wireless
8.6
Qwest Communications International Inc.
8.5
Cisco Systems, Inc.
8.5
Verizon Communications Inc.
8.4
Cox Communications, Inc.
8.1
Harris Corporation
8.1
Motorola, Inc.
8.0
T-Mobile
8.0
AT&T
8.0
3Com
8.0
Comcast Corporation
7.8
Alltel Corporation
7.6
Charter Communications, Inc.
7.6
Celluar One
7.6
SBC Communications Inc.
7.5
Qualcomm Incorporated
7.3
TDS Telecom
7.1
Cingular
7.0
Sprint Corporation
6.8
Level 3 Communications, Inc.
6.7
BellSouth Corporation
6.6
IDT Corporation
6.6
Nextel Communications, Inc.
6.3
Corning Inc.
6.2
Nortel Networks
6.2
Lucent Technologies Inc.
6.2
Avaya Inc.
6.2
McLeodUSA, Inc.
6.2
Echostar Communications Corporation
5.9
Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.
5.6
Worldcell
5.4
Tellabs, Inc.
5.1
WilTel Communications Group, Inc.
5.0
Broadwing Inc.
4.6
XO Communications, Inc.
4.4
CenturyTel, Inc.
4.2
Industry Average
7.0

Other findings for sector firms include the following:

Surveyed firms receive the best overall rating (CRI: 8.3) for Simplicity
and the worst (CRI: 5.5) for Responsiveness.
Of those 95 percent that provide a viable means of response, 23 percent
of firms did not respond to any online inquiries.
Fifty-six percent responded to all inquiries. Of these, 86 percent
responded within 48 hours, nine percent responded within 72 hours and
five percent responded after four days.

Twenty-one percent of firms responded to half of the inquiries received.
Of these, 88 percent responded within 48 hours, while 12 percent
responded within 72 hours.

Some 62 percent of all sector firms use Autoresponder technology, in
which emails are automatically sent back to users to confirm the receipt
of their inquiry and let them know when they should expect a response.
Of these, 62 percent followed with a full response, 17 percent followed
up half of their Autoresponses with a reply and 21 percent never
followed up with a response.

Some 90 percent of companies provide email forms for online inquiries.
Five percent provide email addresses. Another 2.5 percent provide online
contacts inappropriate to general consumers. An additional 2.5 percent
provide only offline contacts such as phone numbers or postal
addresses.  Some 88 percent provide a keyword search function on their
site.  Ninety-eight percent of sector firms have privacy policies on
their sites explaining how customers' personal data is being used. Of
those that do, 10 percent need to be more explicit about how they use
personal data, 44 percent do not collect data or use collected data only
for internal purposes, 13 percent share data with affiliates or
subsidiaries and 33 percent share data without permission from users.

Some 95 percent use cookie technology. Of these, eight percent provide a
full explanation of how cookies can be disabled, 76 percent mention that
they can be disabled, 11 percent explain how cookies work and five
percent don't mention cookies at all.

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