Reputation, which affects everything from end user recommendation behavior to the ability to weather bad publicity, is not telecom’s forte. Telecom, as far as the general public is concerned, has a downright bad reputation, despite millions of dollars in ads and branding efforts. And what has created this glaring negativity? Mostly, it’s a failure by operators to explain anything about themselves beyond the network, which often disappoints.
The negative perception “has a lot to do with expectations,” explained Anthony Johndrow, managing director at the Reputation Institute, which conducts annual surveys of the general public asking them how they feel about certain companies based on seven dimensions, and then applies statistical analysis to the results to determine specifically the discreet influence of reputation on the public’s behavior. “The industry is not well-regarded and hasn't ever been. What matters to people is how companies communicate and do good things as corporate citizens, not just products and services—but carriers don’t discuss those other things.”
Why the Bad Rep
Carriers tend to compete strictly on the basis of the network reliability, speeds, pricing or the latest handset or endpoint. This focus on marketing only products and services, not themselves as companies, backfires because put simply, the service doesn’t tend to live up to what people want. And this is increasingly true as telecom companies have made wireless a bigger part of their identities.
“People have very high expectation that the phone's going to work without bugs, that the infrastructure's there for conversations to be crystal clear, no dropped calls, and that the broadband’s going to be fast — none of which is true in wireless all or even most of the time,” said Johndrow. “So it’s uncommon for people to be truly happy with service they get from their cell provider.”
In other words, AT&T Inc. (“more bars in more places”) and Verizon Wireless (“America’s largest and most reliable network”) aren’t doing themselves any favors by touting their networks as their main identity. Especially when they’re missing an opportunity to improve their reputation in other ways.
Products and services make up only quarter of a carrier’s rep. “Instead, citizenship and governance have increased dramatically in importance, to making up a third of reputation,” he said. “This was barely on the radar five years ago but has come on like gangbusters. And it’s something carriers never highlight.”
Another important characteristic in determining reputation in telecom is the workplace category, or what it’s like to work for the company. The finding isn’t as oddball as it seems on the surface. “There’s an intuitive link there because customer service is such a huge part of how people think about telecom firms. If those people seem unhappy, you'll perceive that. And these companies are not known for customer service, be that a true characterization or not.”
