- Large enterprises favor AT&T for internet service while small businesses prefer Verizon, according to J.D. Power
- Small businesses don't have the network backups big corporation have if service goes down, but they do have more flexibility to change ISPs
- AI's impact on internet satisfaction is hard to measure because the awareness isn't there yet
Results are in for J.D. Power’s latest business internet satisfaction survey, with AT&T and Verizon leading the pack. Small businesses, however, are generally less satisfied than larger companies.
For internet satisfaction from large enterprises (500+ employees), AT&T claimed first place for the seventh year in a row with a score of 732. The operator also landed on top of the medium business segment (20 to 499 employees) with a score of 739.
Verizon came ahead of AT&T in satisfaction from small businesses (>20 employees), scoring 680 compared to the latter’s 636.
AT&T has typically performed well with large enterprise customers, said Carl Lepper, J.D. Power’s senior director of technology, media and telecom. AT&T at the end of 2023 had the highest number of fiber lit commercial buildings in the U.S., according to Vertical Systems Group.
Verizon meanwhile “has done a really good job, especially on the east coast, with their customers,” Lepper told Fierce. The carrier stood up a program called Small Business Digital Ready, which provides small business owners with resources such as online courses and even grant funding.
But it’s not as if AT&T and Verizon’s business internet products are that different from one another.
“They offer cloud services, they offer security, all of that good stuff,” said Lepper, as well as products for both cell service and landline phones. “It’s kind of a one-stop shop.”
2024 marked the first year J.D. Power rebranded its survey from the U.S. Business Wireline Satisfaction Study to the Business Internet Satisfaction Study.
Why the name change? Because a lot of people don’t know what “wireline” means exactly, Lepper said, especially as it’s not even a guarantee that businesses have a wired connection anymore.
Historically, “if you had internet to your business, it was from a cable of some sort. But now with the ability to get fixed wireless access or internet through Wi-Fi…it’s not necessarily a wire in the ground as it used to be.”
Small business struggles
Although Verizon claimed the highest score in small business internet satisfaction, the number still fell short compared to ratings from medium and large enterprises.
If a local coffee shop’s internet goes down, it could potentially go out of business, said Lepper, because small businesses “don’t have all the backups and all the other pieces of equipment” that are available to big corporations.
J.D. Power’s survey evaluated business internet experiences across seven factors: performance and reliability, cost of service, communications, billing, digital account management, customer service and sales representatives.
The latter category only applied to medium and large businesses, since smaller companies don’t typically have sales reps. But interestingly, J.D. Power found network performance and reliability was “very important” for small businesses, “even more so than [for] the large enterprises.”
“I actually thought cost would be higher…because how expensive internet is really does matter,” Lepper said. But cost was still the “second most important” factor for small businesses.
On the other hand, one advantage small businesses have over large enterprises is the flexibility to change ISPs.
“I’ve learned the large businesses don’t change providers very easily, because there’s so much involved…the contracts are very complex,” noted Lepper.
AI, customer service trends
Customer service going digital is hardly a new phenomenon. But having “good apps and good digital account management” is something J.D. Power is looking more into when analyzing business internet satisfaction.
“I think the new trend is really how these big companies talk to their brands and self-service and ask for service,” Lepper said, and how carriers like AT&T and Verizon are responding to those requests.
J.D. Power also found that among medium-sized businesses that have access to an online management portal, business owners who are aware of the tool and use it have higher satisfaction (715) than those who are aware and don't use it (658).
More and more companies (including telcos) are testing generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to improve customer service. However, AI isn’t quite on the radar for a lot of folks, according to Lepper.
“It’s hard for us to ask a business or anyone how AI is impacting them, because they don’t know if AI is impacting them,” he said.
A call center might use AI to give customers suggestions for a cheaper or more effective service. “But the customer doesn’t know that’s happening.”
“So it’s hard for me to get their satisfaction around it because it’s invisible to them,” Lepper concluded.