Dive Brief:
- When Dan Schulman became Verizon’s CEO last year, he made it the company’s mission to become customer-first focused. Since then, the carrier implemented Simplicity Plan, a flat-rate, unlimited wireless plan, and revamped its loyalty program.
- A year into Schulman’s tenure, Verizon reported postpaid phone net additions of 406,000 in Q3 2026, an 820% increase year over year, according to an earnings release. More customers chose to remain Verizon customers during the quarter, too, with consumer postpaid phone churn improving slightly to 0.87% for the quarter.
- “Clearly, our value proposition is resonating with our customers. Simplicity, Verizon One, our loyalty plan… our customers love it, and we're seeing it in all of our results,” Schulman said during Verizon’s third-quarter earnings call on Monday.
Dive Insight:
Over the past year, Verizon’s customer-first strategy has manifested as efforts to reduce churn, simplify pricing and improve loyalty. These CX efforts contributed to Verizon’s results in the third quarter, according to Schulman.
“Our loyalty program enrollment is scaling quickly across our base, and the customer feedback data, whether it be net promoter score, overall customer satisfaction, or first-call resolution, is moving in the right direction on every dimension we track,” Schulman noted.
Launched in June, Verizon’s Simplicity Plan is intended to reduce the complexity sometimes associated with cellular services. Simplicity also offers content bundles such as with Netflix, HBO Max and YouTube.
Verizon’s loyalty program includes 3% cash back in Verizon Dollars that customers can convert to gift cards. The program also includes Verizon Shine, which offers weekly giveaways, coupons and special deals.
“All of our extensive efforts to focus on the end-to-end customer experience are paying off and showing up in our year-over-year improvements in our churn rate, our increasing postpaid phone net ads and accounts, and a simultaneous reduction in our cost to acquire and retain customers,” Schulman said.
Like AT&T, part of Verizon’s customer retention strategy includes bundling wired and wireless service via Verizon One. Verizon’s broadband net additions were 314,000 for the quarter, with fiber subscribers comprising nearly half of those.
“Postpaid phone customers are attaching our broadband solutions, and our broadband customers are attaching postpaid phone service with both cohorts churning materially less than single product customers,” Schulman said.
Mobility and broadband service revenue reached approximately $23.5 billion, representing a 2.9% year-over-year increase. Total operating revenue was $34.3 billion, a 1.5 percent year-over-year increase. Verizon also reported consolidated net income of $5.3 billion, a 5.2% year-over-year increase.
