In April of 2022, FairlawnGig surveyed its residential customers to better measure the impact the network has on the community and measure customer satisfaction. The annual survey consisted of ten questions and took on average two minutes to complete. The survey yielded 385 residential customer responses, resulting in accuracy of +/- 5%. This is the third year we have fielded our customer satisfaction survey and year over year over year, satisfaction has remained consistently high in an ISP industry accustomed to low satisfaction scores.
Overall satisfaction amongst household customers is 95% with more than 4 in 5 (81%) saying they are “very satisfied” with FairlawnGig. Scores have remained within a 2% range since 2020.
When asked to rate the FairlawnGig’s customer service, 4 in 5 (80%) said “excellent” with 99% stating the service they receive from FairlawnGig is at least “good.”
Almost all of Fairlawn residents say FairlawnGig is at least “somewhat important” to living in Fairlawn while more than 4 in 5 (83%) say it is either “extremely” or “very important. FairlawnGig’s service continues to see a significant bump since the pandemic and early 2020 results.
Concurrently, home sales rose 9.7% in Fairlawn in 2021.
Pew Research reports that as we get further away from the pandemic, 61% of Americans today that have a choice are choosing not to go into their workplace. Why? For the most part, they’ve developed a preference for at-home work with it reaching 76% of respondents versus 60% in the height of the pandemic in 2020. Finally, more Americans are working from “anywhere” as the number of people who have relocated geographies away from their workplace is now 17% versus 9% in 2020.
Here in Fairlawn, there are still 43% of respondents who simply cannot work from home, but for those who can… a full quarter (27%) are working from home full time while another 30% work between one and four days a week at home.
What are the long-term impacts of being forced to do “everything” online and from home during the pandemic?
FairlawnGig-enabled economic activities including videoconferencing (63%, up 12% from 2021), telemedicine (21%) and continuing education (20%), and self-employment (16%) are all continuing in 2022.
While traditional ISPs offer television service, FairlawnGig does not. Despite this, the service has reached a more than 64% take rate in our service footprint.
Almost 3 in 4 (72%) of FairlawnGig customers have “cut the cord” of cable television completely while the remaining 28% still rely on cable TV for home entertainment. For these customers, they’re not ready to rely solely on streaming for their television viewing.
Interestingly, while the rest of the world is seeing a slight dip in Netflix subscriptions recently, we bumped up to 75% in with Amazon Prime (71%) not far behind. Hulu and Disney+ are subscribed to by nearly half of FairlawnGig subscribers each at 47%.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is the “Net Promoter Score” (NPS). A Net Promoter Score gauges customer loyalty and should correlate with revenue growth. The NPS is figured with one simple question:
How likely is it that you would recommend FairlawnGig to a friend or family member? (on a scale of 0-10 where zero is “not at all likely” and ten is “extremely likely.”
This question produced a NPS for FairlawnGig of 86, an increase of 2 from 2021 (84) and 6 from 2020 (80). This puts FairlawnGig is solidly in the top quartile of organizational scores and much higher than the typical ISP, which typically have sub-20 NPS scores.*
When examining the actual numbers given by respondents, 88% answered a 9 or a 10 while the average numerical answer was 9.5.
NPS classifies FairlawnGig’s customers in its standard categories that follow:
- Promoters (88% of FairlawnGig customers). Responded 9 or 10. Likely to exhibit value-creating behaviors including buying more, remaining customers for longer, and making more positive referrals to other potential customers.
- Passives (9%). Responses of 7 or 8, unlikely to help or hurt brand.
- Detractors (3%). Responded with a score of 0 to 6. Less likely to exhibit value-creating behaviors for the brand.
* The average Net Promoter Score for Internet Service Providers is in the range of 0, with the lowest being -16 and the highest 19.
Sampling of Open-End Responses
Overall, we are VERY PLEASED with the FairlawnGig…compliments to Mayor Roth and Ernie Staten for the ongoing service and support provided by the Fairlawn Gig…without question, it is a real asset to both businesses and residents of the City of Fairlawn.
It is one of the things I like most about living in Fairlawn
I love that when I call customer service, I get a real live person. I wasn’t expecting that. It was refreshing. I hope that never goes away. It’s one of the reasons I chose FairlawnGig as my internet service and also the low price. Customer service was also very helpful.
You are doing an excellent job. Every time I have an issue, it is resolved in a timely manner. Since COVID, I can brag and say we have not lost connection or had any problem with 4 people using the internet or streaming on a consistent basis throughout the day and evening.
I have been extremely happy with the Gig. Many of my friends outside of Fairlawn wish they had it.
Keep being awesome! In three and a half years I cannot think of an interruption to service that was not an announced overnight maintenance outage. As long as I live in the Akron area I will remain at my current house, having FairlawnGig available is a big reason why.
I love FairlawnGig. When I’ve had issues, I call in and can talk to a technician who will walk me through solutions and if they can’t help remotely, they jump in the truck and drive over. FairlawnGig was being built when we decided to move to Fairlawn and it honestly was part of why we moved here. I haven’t had to negotiate with a cable company in four years!