"So, while Verizon has got a really huge haters forum, it still is better off than the competition with an American Consumers Satisfaction Index score of 68. This means the level of satisfaction that Verizon enjoys in this sector is more than any of the other companies. Agreed, this doesn’t mean service is great, and there is definitely room for improvement. But Verizon does have an edge over other telecom firms."

Another mobile phone co on the CRM Lowdown list (this time the bad one) is AT&T: "Its 'customer care' ratings, as measured by J. D. Power, plunged from above average in 2003 (four of a possible 5 stars) to below average this year (two out of 5 stars)." The VocaLabs group has speculated that this may have to do with the merger with Cingular.

Apparently the merger only just became official on the last business day of 2006, but customers of both have been feeling the pain for more than a year. VocaLabs reported a year ago:

"Legacy AT&T wireless scores continue to lag the industry and drag down Cingular's performance. Cingular is trying to convert as many AT&T customers as possible to the Cingular network, so it has no particular incentive to spend money improving AT&T service quality."

The top three losers were, predictably, Dell, Comcast, and AOL. I wasn't surprised to see Compaq on the list at number 10, given their merger with HP. Mergers almost always destroy customer
service.

EBay made the worst list. Again, this not surprising. Companies like eBay, Netflix, Amazon.com -- they all focus so much on automation and web service that when something inevitably goes really wrong, there's no 1-800 number to be found. Adventurous customers may find one after some excavation, only to be referred back to the website once they get through.

All this has inspired me to create a list of the best ways to ensure bad service. The usual Gethuman list isn't enough anymore. There are so many more ways to ruin a customer's day:
1. Don't post your phone number.
2. Merge with another company, but take your time merging the customer service teams.
3. Do not connect your outsourced call centers with the ones in-house.
4. Make sure your outsourcer in India has no power to schedule repairs in America (Verizon's DSL service has mastered this).
5. Follow protocol. If the customer has a small request, don't give an inch. Not until they've called back three times. (Thank you, Sun Country Airlines).