J.D. Power and Associates' 2008 Wireless Customer Care Performance Study (Volume 2) released yesterday reports that customer service hold times for wireless carriers have reached and all time high.

The semi-annual study provides a detailed assessment on wireless carrier customer care service in three areas: telephone calls with a service representative and/or automated response system (ARS); visits to a retail wireless store; and web-based support. For each customer care delivery method, processing issues such as problem resolution efficiency and hold-time duration are measured.

The new report found that the average time wireless customers spend on hold before speaking with a customer service representative in 2008 was 4.4 minutes, an increase of 34 percent from the average hold time in 2003 (3.3 minutes), the first year of the study.

Many respondents to our Survey of User Needs (45%) identified customer support as one of their five most important wireless service features. Interestingly, respondents between the ages of 25 and 44 years cited customer support as an important feature more frequently (48%) than any other age group. Only 39 percent of repondents 65 years and older identified customer support as an important service feature.

For more details on the J.D. Power study, see: http://fiercewireless.com/press-releases/j-d-power-and-associates-reports-customer-service-hold-times-wireless-phone-customers