It's hard for me to believe T-Mobile did so poorly. I have called them *so much* over the past two weeks. Each time I have gotten excellent service with each rep. I suppose I have talked to 8 different reps and every one of them has been helpful, pleasant, and easy to do business with.
T-Mobile is terrible.
They're shady.
This has been my customer service experience with T-Mobile:
1. REP changed my Rate Plan when I called to downgrade the data plan on one line (3 lines on my account), triggering all of my contract dates to be reset to 2 years that day. He didn't tell me, ask me, nothing. Apparently I wanted 1k minutes for the same price even tho between all three lines we never used more than 100 minutes a month.
Called back and the rep told me, untruthfully, that I was notified and it was noted on the account.
BUT, if I wanted to contest it I could write to some obscure address in Houston, TX to contest it. After a flurry of profanities slamming the phone in her face (hanging up), I called back and finally got a manager on the line, and he fixed the issue.
2. Call to get a replacement phone. New phone arrives completely borked. Obviously broken. Probably was taken out of a return boxed and put in a ship box instantly to come to me. And yea, I was super pissed cause I had a flight in < 1 week and my primary SIM goes in that phone (switching SIMs in Android, WP7, etc. phones logs you out of all kinds of stuff, it's a PITA to deal with that).
3. Their My Account app is completely broken - on all platforms. It only gives you the number of minutes that one line used unless all lines have Admin Access to the account on the website. So, when I was moving and setting things up I apparently went over my minutes, by like 150, but the My Account app kept telling us we used 750 minutes (out of 1000). Apparently the app is broken.
Oh, and then they shut my phones off and tried to charge $25 per line to turn them back on the same day (why were they shut off to begin with, the bill wasn't even due). That didn't fly. I was ready to turn them off right then and there.
The only time the customer service reps have been "flawless" is when you want to buy something, and that's when they aren't quoting one price and charging you anotehr one (bought a Bold 9780 and returned it instantly because of that). Also had one rep tell me I had 21 days to return the phone, and then when I called to return it they told me they'd charge me something like $299 if it wasn't there in 14 days - it was a Business Account purchase for those wondering and there is generally a larger return window (and lower prices) for corporate customers - you purchase through a different division than normal consumers.
AT&T has always been flawless when I had them. I've even had reps from AT&T reach out to me on Facebook and follow-up call me about issues, do bill credits, etc. the whole 9 yards. Actually, Sprint is really good with Social Network support as well. T-Mobile is terrible there, as well.
The iPhone doens't have anything to do with AT&T's rising ratings, because 3 carriers now have it. SPrint has the iPhone now, and their rating is falling, so it's not because of that device.
However, it could be linked to AT&T's vast device and platform portfolio which at this point surpasses every other carrier (they carry all the newer high end WP7, Blackberry, Android [minus Nexus] devices in addition to the iPhone).
Verizon's ratings will likely remain high because people adore their coverage, their CDMA data speeds are slow, but they're manageable. The same cannot be said for Sprint.