Recon Analytics principal Roger Entner has some amusing insights from recent research: “One-third of Americans cannot tell you what home internet technology they have. Of the ones who think they know, one-third are wrong,” wrote Entner on a LinkedIn post.
Recon Analytics gleaned this information because it surveys thousands of broadband customers every week, and it runs speed tests inside its surveys, so it can compare what people say they have against what their connection actually delivers.
“Some people swear they have fiber and get DSL speeds,” wrote Entner. “Others insist they have DSL while pulling down speeds no copper line could produce.”
Entner’s comments made me laugh because I had already deduced (after 30 years of covering telecom) that a lot of people don’t understand their connectivity or their relationships with their providers.
For instance, my elderly father absolutely cannot understand the distinction between Comcast and Xfinity. No matter how many times I tell him, “They’re the same,” he thinks Comcast provides the internet and Xfinity provides the TV.
Or there was the time my 20-something daughter and her roommates suddenly lost all their connectivity, both the Wi-Fi and their cell services. They all ran out of their rooms at the same time, asking “Do you have service?” When my daughter asked one of her roommates whom her cell provider was, the roommate responded, “I don’t know.”
And I’ve noticed plenty of confusion among people who don’t quite get the fact that Wi-Fi in the house is actually connected to a wire.
I think some of this can be chalked up to the fact that there’s usually one point person in a household who has the joy of dealing with all the technology and the providers of that technology. In my household, I’m usually that point person (although my husband does deal with the smart TVs).
Switching wireless providers
Speaking of dealing with service providers, recently, my family decided to switch our wireless service from T-Mobile to Verizon. We’d been with T-Mobile for more than five years and were happy with the service. However, when I received two price increases within a fairly short amount of time, I was ticked. So, I looked around for providers offering free phones, and we decided to make the switch to Verizon.
Rather than going to a Verizon retail store, I called a 1-800 number to inquire about switching our family of three. The next thing you know, I’m talking to this nice man, Prasad, from Verizon customer service, whom I’m pretty sure was working in a call center in India, although Prasad’s accent was more robotic than Indian. I’ve since learned that some companies are using AI to neutralize foreign accents to make prejudiced consumers happier.
My first interaction with Prasad was great. He helped me pick out a plan for our family, talked with me about the price, helped me select the type of new phones we would be receiving, sent me the contract to sign digitally, told me how to get a number transfer PIN from T-Mobile, etc. It all seemed so smooth that I bragged about the experience on LinkedIn.
Unfortunately, complexities started building up, which made me long for the days when the whole family simply went to the Verizon store together and got everything done within a couple of hours.
Suffice it to say that after multiple more phones calls with Prasad, two trips to the Verizon store in my hometown, a trip to the T-Mobile store to get a second number transfer PIN after the first one expired, and, oh, a trip to the Apple store because there was a problem with one of the phones, we finally got everything all set!
What’s the takeaway from all this?
A lot of people don’t understand the technology or the providers behind all their critical communication. They absolutely need their cell phones and their broadband connections, but they oftentimes don’t know what service they have nor who their service provider is.
Entner said, “This should worry anyone who builds broadband policy on survey data. If you ask consumers what they have, you are collecting fiction at scale. And ‘I don't know’ is a perfectly legitimate answer that a large share of the market gives you honestly.”
That’s a sad fact when you consider all the massive amount of advertising done by the major service providers. But these communication technologies are complicated, and people need assistance.
When I hear service providers talking about implementing AI to reduce their customer service staff, I cringe. People need more human interaction to assist with their technology, not less.
At last week’s Mountain Connect show in Denver, Alberto Garcia, a regional government and community affairs manager with GFiber (formerly known as Google Fiber), said the part that many consumers are thinking. “If AI can’t answer the question, at some point people are going to want to talk to somebody,” said Garcia. “People want to talk to a human being.”
And I would say people need to talk to a human being. And while they may not know whom their current service provider is, they (or the point person in their family) will remember a previous service provider that they weren’t happy with. You can ask the cable companies about that.
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