That’s a dip for T-Mobile, which had for years placed considerably higher than AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon for overall satisfaction.
After officially merging with Sprint in 2020, the carrier dropped in almost every category, slipping from above average to just average for value, customer support, and data quality. Its rating for cell phone reception fell to below average.
Before the merger, consumer advocates had warned that taking a major player out of the industry would inevitably result in less competition, higher prices, and worse service for all wireless customers.
It’s still unclear whether that’s the conclusion cellular customers are likely to come to. We started fielding our survey in October 2020, only seven months after Sprint’s customers became T-Mobile customers under the terms of the merger agreement.
Sprint’s satisfaction ratings had lagged behind T-Mobile’s for years, and some former Sprint customers had reservations about T-Mobile.
“T-Mobile’s dip is almost entirely due to the assessments from former Sprint customers,” says Martin Lachter of CR’s survey department. “They were as harsh in their judgments of T-Mobile as they had been of Sprint in previous years.”
