Wireless service providers have improved their customer service, particularly their billing, but they still have “a ways to go,” said In-Stat Principal Analyst David Chamberlain after his survey of 1100 wireless customers.

“It’s clear that in the area of the greatest complaints, which was billing, they have invested and made significant progress,” he said in an interview following publication of Wireless Customer Service: Not Over the Hump Yet. “There’s been more training that has gone on, they have improved their back office operations and they have improved their policies.”

Customers had previously complained that billing was inaccurate and that complaints about billing problems were handled badly, Chamberlain said. Consumers are still complaining about lengthy hold times, he added, and they have not yet warmed up to interactive self-help tools.

“The one area that stands out is hold time. Over a third of the people we surveyed--33.6%--complained about lengthy hold times,” he said. “The next most common complaint was about first call resolution or timely resolution of their problem. Those were the standouts.”

Many wireless providers are investing in self-help tools, including Web portals and smarter interactive voice response systems, Chamberlain said, in order to avoid just adding more people to customer service. But his survey revealed consumer indifference to these new tools.

Consumers don’t hate them, and they don’t love them,” he said. “That tells us that we are not creating more problems, but we’re also not creating any raving fans. It’s kind of a wash, so we don’t know if it is relieving a burden on customer service.”

In general, consumer opinions of their wireless company’s customer service corresponded to their overall attitude toward the provider. T-Mobile scored the highest scores for its customer service, Chamberlain said, but Verizon Wireless had the highest scores for customer loyalty.

Overall, about one in eight wireless customers considered their wireless carrier's customer service “excellent,” with individual company scores ranging from as low as 7% to as high as 21%.