New Survey Shows Verizon Rates Higher With Customers Than Cable

NEW YORK - Verizon’s customers like Verizon more than most cable customers like their cable company, a new survey shows.

The survey queried customers of Verizon and competing cable companies on various impressions they have of their provider’s phone, Internet and video packages. Verizon beat the top five competitors on overall performance, quality and reliability, and customer service. (Click here to see details on results.)

The survey results follow recent reports by PC World magazine and the American Customer Satisfaction Index showing that Verizon and the telecom industry lead cable in customer perceptions of service quality.

Customers were asked, based on their experience with their current service provider, how likely they are to recommend their provider to friends and others. In a solid measure of satisfaction, nearly 40 percent of Verizon customers said they were very likely to recommend Verizon bundles to others. Comparable numbers were just over 31 percent for Cox, 28 percent for Time Warner, 25 percent for Cablevision, 24 percent for Charter and 23 percent for Comcast.

A large number of cable customers also reported they are ready for a new TV and Internet provider. A third or more of the customers of Comcast, Cablevision, Cox and Charter, and more than a quarter of Time Warner customers said they were likely to switch providers. Fewer than 18 percent of Verizon customers said they were likely to switch from Verizon.

“This study gives a clear picture of the marketplace,” said Fran Picone, executive director of performance assurance for Verizon. "These results show that the work we put into our networks, our product offerings and our service packages is recognized by our customers.

“The results also show that Verizon is truly leading the market. In some regions, Verizon actually beats competitors in every single parameter measured, and Verizon’s raw scores were almost universally higher than the competitors’,” she said. “It is important for Verizon to continually take the pulse of its customers and those of the competitors to understand what we need to do to be a leader in the marketplace and gain market share.”

In the survey, companies were rated on overall performance, reputation, value, billing, customer service, products and services, quality and reliability, and pricing.

Because the survey measures opinions of actual customers of the individual companies rather than general public impressions, the results accurately demonstrate marketplace perceptions of the companies and services. Only statistically significant results are reported here -- those where there is less than a 5 percent chance that the samples are not reflective of the total population and thus are true differences, though Verizon generally had raw scores higher than the competition.

“This research was designed to accurately reflect customer views of the companies measured and to allow comparisons of those views between Verizon and its cable competitors,” Picone said.

According to George Wilkerson, president of Flake-Wilkerson Market Insights, the company that managed the survey process, interviews were conducted with a random sample of Verizon customers as well as customers of the head-to-head major competitors in each region. The survey is also blind: Customers did not know for whom the survey was being conducted, eliminating any bias effects and providing results that are highly reliable. The survey reflects customer opinions as of May 2007.

The survey results were reported regionally by Flake-Wilkerson. Among those results:

In New Jersey, Verizon beat Comcast on every parameter and beat Cablevision on overall performance, reputation, value and pricing.


In New York, Verizon beat Cablevision on reputation, value and pricing and beat Time Warner on value, quality, and reliability and pricing.


On the West Coast, Verizon beat Time Warner in all categories and beat Comcast in all but billing and customer service.
Verizon’s broad base of customers queried included those with traditional services and packages of voice, Internet and entertainment as well as those with FiOS all-fiber services delivered over fiber optics right to the home.

FiOS Internet was recently named to the top five of PC World Magazine’s 100 Best Products of 2007. The only Internet service to make the prestigious list, Verizon FiOS Internet was ranked fourth on the roster of what the magazine called “the finest products and services of the past 12 months” -- “based on exemplary design, features, performance and innovation.”

Local phone service provided by Verizon is better than that provided by much of the industry and it continues to get better, according to consumers surveyed in the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index conducted by the University of Michigan.

Verizon was tied with Qwest for the top spot in the fixed landline sector -- improving its score over last year by 4.3 percent, more than any other company in the industry sector. On a scale of 0-100, Verizon earned a 72, up from 69 last year and above the industry average of 70.

In results of its own survey, PC World magazine recently reported FiOS Internet service the best ISP service in the market, and Verizon’s high speed Internet service beat Comcast and Charter in the same rankings.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), headquartered in New York, is a leader in delivering broadband and other wireline and wireless communication innovations to mass market, business, government and wholesale customers. Verizon Wireless operates America’s most reliable wireless network, serving 60.7 million customers nationwide. Verizon’s Wireline operations include Verizon Business, which delivers innovative and seamless business solutions to customers around the world, and Verizon Telecom, which brings customers the benefits of converged communications, information and entertainment services over the nation’s most advanced fiber-optic network. A Dow 30 company, Verizon has a diverse workforce of more than 238,000 and last year generated consolidated operating revenues of more than $88 billion. For more information, visit www.verizon.com.