Earlier this year, we reported on how wireless carriers were performing in terms of taking care of their customers. Fast forward six months and the major wireless network providers have made significant progress in terms of serving customer needs. In fact, overall wireless customer care performance has improved considerably as customers report shorter hold times and improved rates of problem resolution on the first contact, compared with six months ago, according to the 2009 Wireless Customer Care Performance Study-Volume 2.

Now in its seventh year, the semi-annual study provides a detailed report card on how well wireless carriers service their customers via three point-of-contact methods:

• telephone calls with a customer service representative (CSR) and/or automated response system (ARS)
• visits to a retail wireless store
• on the Web

Within each contact method, the study measures satisfaction and processing issues such as problem-resolution efficiency and hold-time duration.

The study finds that overall customer care performance has improved considerably to 735 on a 1,000-point scale, up 12 points from the first wave of the study released in February. Satisfaction improves across all methods of contact, with the most notable improvements occurring in the areas of "first-contact" problem resolution and shorter hold times. More than three-fourths (76%) of calls to customer service are resolved on the first contact, compared with just 66 percent six months ago. In addition, hold times now averages 5.55 minutes, compared with 6.58 minutes in February 2009.

"Satisfaction improves considerably when customers spend less time on hold and more time addressing their problems and inquiries with a customer service representative," said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and Associates. "In order to sustain and improve these levels of satisfaction, carriers must ensure the usefulness of their customer support systems, whether the contact is made over the phone, in a store or online. This includes effectively answering customer inquiries and accurately identifying those customers who need to speak directly with a representative, based on the type and severity of the problem they are trying to resolve."