Telecommunications in the US

Sector average score

Knowledge & Expertise

Style of Communication

Speed of Resolving Problems

Valuing the Customer

Vodafone completes its second straight quarter at the top of the Telecommunications in the US table, building on its Overall Effort Score and putting clear daylight between T-Mobile in second place.

Elsewhere, Dish is one to watch this wave, adding an impressive +6 to its Overall Effort Score to take fifth.

It’s been a positive three months for Brightspeed too, which moves out of bottom place for the first time since we started the Customer Effort Index two years ago.

Executive Summary

How to use this Index

Last updated: Jul 2025

Next update: Oct 2025

Executive summary

Vodafone is a world leader for Customer Effort across all three territories the CEI measures – the UK, US and Australia. Vodafone's Overall Effort Score is highest in the US at 67, which is higher than any score for this territory the Customer Effort Index has ever recorded.
We say

Telcos across the world should take note. The US Telco market is famous for leveraging cutting-edge technical solutions to offer world-class customer service. Vodafone is clearly at the forefront of this, so brands around the world should pay close attention to their investments across CX to keep up.
Are Telcos ready to tackle bulk billing questions? The Federal Communications Commission has dropped a proposed Biden plan to ban broadband internet “bulk billing”. The plan promised to put an end to a requirement for tenants to pay for broadband, cable, and satellite service provided by a specific communications provider even if they did not wish to take the service.
We say

If tenants can't go to their landlord they may well go to the provider. US Telcos should make sure they are making key information and benefits easily accessible and present any frustrated customers with sympathetic staff, equipped with a range of options to show they are valued.

How to use the Customer Effort Index

Customer Effort Scores for the quarter are presented in the rankings, ordered by highest Overall Effort Score first, to show which brand scored highest with its customers for that period. Individual brand ratings against the four pillars take us underneath that Overall Effort Score, with brand-specific explanatory analysis from the CEI Editorial team.

You can use the display above to toggle between score, ranking and individual pillars. Clicking 'Performance Tracker' enables you to analyse the performance over time.

The Customer Effort Index is calculated using a self-referential scale that is recomputed every wave based on what the minimum and maximum values are. This enables us to see how each brand is performing compared to the others within the data set. See About for more on the methodology.