Just because someone says they’re satisfied doesn’t mean they won’t churn.
In Circles Consumer Survey, conducted in October 2025 with 1000 telco customers in the United States of America (US), 87 percent of mobile customers surveyed said they were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their services, but 70 percent of them would switch to a new provider if they offered a better experience. This revealed a disconnect between what telcos are currently offering and what customers actually value.
This disconnect is striking when you consider services like Spotify and Airbnb who have used digital experiences to disrupt their industries are still going strong. Consumers could be open to digitally native, personalized experiences in telcos, given how many tech giants have disrupted their own industries. Self-service options, service bundles, and celebrity endorsements are only part of what they currently expect.
These sorts of insights are why these studies are crucial. As part of its mission to develop high NPS telco customer experiences, the Circles Consumer Survey was conducted in October 2025 with 490 males and 510 females aged 21 years and above.
With a nearly even representation of Baby Boomers, Millennials, Gen X and Gen Z’s, this study explored satisfaction levels, loyalty drivers, digital engagement habits, and what they value in their telco services. This post summarizes some of the survey’s biggest takeaways.
Customers Value High Network Reliability and Price, But That’s Not the Full Story
On the surface, customers placed high value on getting reliable network connections (69 percent) at an affordable price (68 percent). These numbers shift slightly in favor of price among women (69 percent) and Gen Z (65 percent), but these two factors remain the most important across the board, with customer service as a distant third.
Always-on connectivity is a telco’s core offering. Unreliable networks can be seen as unforgivable, especially in today’s hyper-connected world.
When it comes to price, the US telco market faces very stiff competition. With a large number of mobile network operators and mobile virtual network operator brands who compete on price in the USA, customers are now spoilt for choice. These market conditions are pushing many telcos to develop increasingly elaborate service bundles in a bid to retain more customers, which you can read more about here.
Given all this, telcos are now under pressure to develop customer service innovations that go the extra mile for customers. And one underutilized opportunity that telcos can use to enhance customer experience and loyalty is through telco apps.
Telco Apps: The Underutilized Opportunity
Every smartphone with a mobile connection needs a telco app, but these aren’t utilized to their full potential as Jackie Tan, Xplore Lead, Circles notes,
“The only time when they visit the app is when they need to look at their bill or there’s something wrong with their plan.”
This was proven true in the survey, where 32 percent of respondents say they rarely or never use their provider’s app or website.
The opportunity to innovate on telco apps became clearer when 87 percent said that they would use telco provider apps if they offered meaningful discounts like rideshare or food delivery service:
Giving users a reason to return to the app could unlock these opportunities and engage and build loyalty among younger digital natives.
All of this points to an underexplored opportunity for telcos to make digital channels a key customer destination, the way that leading B2C SaaS giants like Spotify and Airbnb do.
Spotify remains one of the leading music streaming apps with paying subscribers increasing 12 percent year on year to 268 million, while their monthly active users rose by 10 percent year on year to hit 678 million.1
Airbnb, despite competition from players like Booking.com, is still going strong and is the second most used travel website in the USA.2 These are also ‘commoditized’ B2C services that offer a strong digital experience, while having competitors across both offline and online channels, but are known to have strong loyalty and retention.
Learning from this, some telcos are pushing the boundaries of what their telco apps can offer. Povo AI and Circles AI place AI chatbot assistants straight within the telco app, and these services are starting to gain traction among customers. Experimental sandbox initiatives such as Xplore AI are discovering different services that can increase customers’ time on app, such as bite-sized local news and horoscopes.
Telcos have a lot they can experiment with when designing their telco app experiences, such as transforming into super apps or going deep into specific niche verticals such as mental health. You can read about what a telco app that goes beyond connectivity could look like here.
Data Protection and Human Connections Are Highly Valued
While exploring app experience improvements, other vital factors should not be ignored. Four in five US survey respondents said that data privacy and protection is one of the most important aspects of their digital experience, and nearly 40 percent consider it more important than personalized offers or seamless user experience. Basic principles such as end-to-end encryption, DDoS Protection, firewalls all need to be considered, and telcos may need to go above and beyond for customers to trust telcos with their personal data.
Despite the push towards digital self-service, many customers still prefer traditional resolution methods. 65 percent prefer speaking to a human to resolve their issues, although 19 percent prefer the ease of digital self-service. Telcos are taking this to heart and have been investing heavily in AI copilots and chatbots to assist customer service agents and some of them are even improving their customer experience NPS (Net Promoter Scores).
Authenticity Over Star Power
Celebrity and influencer endorsements are popular ways to grow brand recognition and attract a wider customer base, but not all generations respond the same way. In fact, 51 percent of consumers say endorsements don’t influence their telco brand choices at all.
Among those who would consider a brand based on endorsements, Millennials (25 percent) and Gen Z (21 percent) are notably more receptive to influencer marketing than Gen X and Boomers. This shows that influence is undergoing more of a shift than a full disappearance. Regardless, authenticity is key and should be the primary focus of brand engagement towards younger generations.
Rethinking Loyalty in the AI Era
The consumer survey paints an interesting picture: US customers are reminding telcos that providing always-on connections is the foundation of telco services, and that they are always on the look out for a bargain.
While NPS and other satisfaction metrics are vital, deeper looks into what people value can uncover the bigger picture. In the case of this study, US consumers’ high intention to switch is a reminder that telcos have to do more to stand out from the increasingly commoditized competition.
In our journey to give customers the best telco experience possible, Circles is sparing no expense to invest in studies like these and also gather real-time, AI-powered insights into what customers want and need from their telcos. All of this is building towards pushing the boundaries of what our industry is capable of.
Circles is pioneering the world’s first AI Digital Mobile Operator (AI-DMO), transforming telcos into anticipatory Techcos. By uniting AI, data intelligence, and global ecosystem partnerships, Circles drives cost savings, revenue growth, and personalized experiences - empowering operators to evolve from connectivity providers into trusted, AI-powered lifestyle enablers that proactively anticipate and meet customer needs.
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