Partners Give Carrier Channel Programs Low Marks

According to the monthly CRN Channel Satisfaction Survey, four carriers,AT&T, Qwest, Sprint and WorldCom,fall well below partner satisfaction levels for major hardware and software vendors.

Solution providers polled by CRN gave their highest carrier ratings to AT&T and Sprint. Over the past six months, an average of 37 percent of respondents expressed satisfaction with AT&T's channel programs, compared with 35 percent for Sprint. An average of 24 percent said they were dissatisfied with AT&T's channel programs, and 21 percent said the same for Sprint.

Yet AT&T's and Sprint's satisfaction marks fall short of those they received in the second half of 2001. For example, last December AT&T posted a 48 percent channel satisfaction rating. The percentage of dissatisfied solution providers, meanwhile, has remained stubbornly high, at 19 percent or more over the past eight months. The trends are similar for Sprint.

Qwest and WorldCom lag behind AT&T and Sprint. For Qwest, the percentage of dissatisfied solution providers has generally topped that of satisfied solution providers over the past six months. An average of 25 percent of solution providers surveyed by CRN, for example, said they were satisfied with the carrier's programs, compared with 30 percent that said they were dissatisfied.

Beleaguered WorldCom scored slightly better, with an average of 30 percent of respondents expressing satisfaction with its channel program vs. 26 percent citing dissatisfaction. But as with all major carriers, WorldCom's share of dissatisfied solution providers has remained quite high, ranging from 22 percent to 29 percent since last November.

Hardware and software vendors have garnered significantly higher channel satisfaction figures than telecoms. Over the past six months, for example, an average of 44 percent of solution providers polled by CRN said they were satisfied with IBM's hardware channel programs, and only 12 percent said they were dissatisfied. On the software front, Veritas Software posted results identical to IBM's.

Among hardware and software vendors, it's often been the case that twice as many solution providers surveyed expressed satisfaction with the companies' channel programs as those expressing dissatisfaction, a ratio that none of the major carriers has yet to approach. And for most hardware and software vendors, the percentage of dissatisfied solution providers is between 10 percent and 15 percent, compared with 20 percent to 30 percent for carriers.