US Mobile claims 4% churn, credits customer care

US Mobile is touting its customer care acumen to differentiate itself from the dozens of other MVNOs targeting American wireless users.

The Connecticut-based company runs on T-Mobile's network, according to reports, and primarily targets college students and seniors with bargain-basement service and an a la carte pricing model. Customers can buy 750 minutes of voice per month for $8, for instance, adding 1,000 texts for $5 and 1 GB of data for $14, plus a $2 monthly service fee.

It sells handsets ranging from a $29 flip phone up to an iPhone 6s Plus for $799, and the average user pays roughly $15 a month, a carrier representative said.

But the company credits its customer satisfaction for its 4 percent churn rate, which it claims is "one of the lowest for prepaid in the industry." US Mobile points to its positive reviews on Trustpilot, a Danish firm that publishes user-generated reviews for online businesses, and on Nicereply, which enables businesses to use their email communications to provide customer care.

(Trustpilot has been criticized for allowing businesses to selectively display their reviews and for posting fake reviews. The Danish company, which denies allowing fraudulent reviews on its site, adds nearly 500,000 new reviews every month and last year closed a funding round worth $73.5 million.)

US Mobile also said the average response time for customer service chat is less than seconds; call responses average less than 25 seconds and emails less than 10 minutes.

While it's a very small player in a sea of MVNOs, US Mobile made headlines earlier this year when it briefly offered three handsets from Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone vendor that has established itself as a major global player but has yet to sell its phones to U.S. users. Xiaomi quickly nixed US Mobile's effort, saying its handsets aren't sold in the U.S. through any authorized distributor.

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