May 11, 2016

Why Do you Use Tracfone? - TracfoneReviewer Survey Results

Results from our Survey about Tracfone and our Readers

A few weeks back we created survey for our readers to take to help us get a better idea of who our readers were, what they are interested in, and ways we can improve the TracfoneReviewer blog. We received over 260 responses in about a week, and a lot of helpful information.

We want to share some of the more pertinent pieces of information from the survey with our readers as we found it very interesting and thought you might as well. You can go back and see the original post about the survey here, but it is no longer possible to take the survey.

We will start by just looking at the first five questions from the survey, as they are more generalized.

Question 1 - How Long have you been Using Tracfone?

In the first question of our survey we wanted to get a better idea of how long people have been using Tracfone. We were quite surprised that the majority of respondents to the survey (55%) had been using Tracfone for six years or more. Another 30% have used Tracfone for three to five years.

tracfone survey average customer
How Long Have You Been Using Tracfone?
Just 3% of respondents have been using Tracfone for less than a year, which leads us to two possible conclusions:

  • Most readers on this blog are 'savvy' consumers and long-term Tracfone customers
  • Tracfone Isn't attracting many new customers

We believe both statements may be partially true. Apparently America Movil, Tracfone's parent company, did lose almost half a million subscribers in the US during the first quarter of 2016 according to an article on FierceWireless. Tracfone and Safelink were where most of these subscriber  losses occurred, but America Movil also owns Straight talk and several other prepaid cell phone companies. Overall, America Movil has over 26 million users in the US across all their MVNO brands.

So, while Tracfone hasn't had the best year so far, we expect they are doing fine, and will be working hard to attract more new customers (hopefully with new and improved smartphones).

Question 2 - Why Do you use Tracfone?

To help understand what is important to our readers, we asked, 'Why do you use Tracfone?'. The answers were fairly consistent with what we expected, with the most popular answer being the low cost.

Take a look at the graph below for the full breakdown.

why use tracfone
Why do you Use Tracfone?


Some of the 'Other' responses included those who use Tracfone for multiple reasons, like low cost and low use.

With the majority of people choosing Tracfone because of the low cost, we have to wonder why Tracfone released the expensive Samsung Galaxy S5 and Samsung Galaxy S6. But perhaps they are just trying to appeal to the small segment of consumers who are willing to spend on a high-end device, but still want to use prepaid service.

It does look like Tracfone will be releasing several new mid-level Android LG phones which should appeal to more customers.

Question 3 - What is your Biggest Complaint about Tracfone?

Tracfone is a low cost cell phone carrier, and as such, they seem to skimp when it comes to certain things like customer service and quality. We see a fair number of comments on the blog with various issues and so we wanted to get a better idea about what the most common complaints about Tracfone were.

Lack of Smartphone options was actually the biggest complaint, with poor customer service coming in second. You can see the top four in the chart below.

tracfone complaints
Biggest Tracfone Complaint


We were pleasantly surprised by the number of 'Other' answers which mostly consisted of people responding that they didn't have any complaints about Tracfone.

The remaining 11% of our survey respondents choose Problems with Phone, Roaming Issues, Airtime Lost/Stolen or BYOP Problems as their biggest complaint.

Question 4 - Is your Tracfone Device your Primary Cell Phone?

tracfone survey
Primary vs Backup Phone from Tracfone
We often see consumers who use Tracfone just as their backup or emergency phone, and not for everyday use. So we were curious about how many people use their Tracfone device as a primary phone versus a secondary or backup.

As it turns out, the majority of respondents use Tracfone as their primary phone. About 23% reported that they use it as a backup.

As Tracfone continues to offer newer phones we suspect more will switch to using Tracfone as their primary device. However, for those who need to make frequent calls or texts (or use data), using some kind of unlimited cell phone plan makes better economical sense.

Question 5 - What Type of Phone do you Currently Use?

popular types of phones tracfone
Most Popular Type of Phone from Tracfone
We asked this question about what type of phone customers currently use not only because we were curious, but also to help us do a better job tailoring the content towers our readers.

We were somewhat surprised to see that 65% of our survey respondents use a smartphone from Tracfone. This does make a lot of sense, as Android phones from Tracfone offer lots of neat features (like Android OS) and there are a lot of great deals for buying phones and minutes bundled.

An almost equal number of respondents use either a non-smartphone from Tracfone or the Tracfone BYOP program.

This concludes our breakdown of the survey results. We may may create another post with analysis of some of the other questions in the future. We want to thank everyone who participated in our survey and helped provide the responses.

We are excited to continue to work at delivering information to our readers and the survey results have already helped.

Leave a comment below with any thoughts or questions you might have and if you're new to this blog take a look around as we have a wide variety of Tracfone related information.

We also have a Facebook page with over 1800 followers that make up a helpful community.

Thanks for visiting!

20 comments :

Angella said...

I just saw this, so I missed the survey. I was wondering if anyone else uses Tracfone for both their main phone and their backup. I've had a basic Tracfone as a backup for six years, and just got my first smartphone for my main phone. So now I have two...I wondered if anyone else does that.

Unknown said...

I do

Unknown said...

Sorry I missed the survey. We use Tracfone for primary phone. In addition I have a BYOP that works great with Tracfone - low monthly cost. I also have a Tracfone smart phone for my daughter.

Anonymous said...

Regarding question 2, I'm a very light user. So no need for a more costly subscription. That doesn't mean I can't afford one. Just don't see the need.

However, I like the higher-quality phones. Would consider the S5 or S6 if either came with SIM card.

Anonymous said...

Just noticed that there is verbiage on the site that states that 90 days plans DO NOT TRIPLE. Looks like this snuck onto the picture thanks to the new smart phone plans.... disappointing.

gadget review said...

this blog proves worth reading through the analysis and some useful stuff regarding tracfone

Unknown said...

Yes I have two , and so does my wife. All four are in service with new backups.

Paul W said...

This matches our need. Moreover, we like the way our iPhones (4S) work seamlessly with our laptops. The phone's platform is stable and reliable. The number of wi-fi hotspots for non-sensitive issues also saves. The earlier comment that the new SE would attract Tracfone users is probably correct; we're interested. Finally, I'd like to know how many BYOP users in the survey bought smart phones, either Android or Apple. Would a user would go through the BYOP process for a flip phone?

Anonymous said...

I just found out my 2g Tracfone service will be eliminated soon.
Does Tracfone have a "cut-off" date for this --- or, do we need to "play it by ear".
thanks for the information regarding upcoming smart phone possibilities. I will do some research on getting a smart phone via Tracfone. Do we have a rough indication of when the Apple iPhones will be available - eg. the "6 series"?

Pat said...

That must be new, I purchased 90 day triple minutes about 2 weeks ago for my Iphone.

Anonymous said...

Yes me too. I missed the survey. I have used Tracfone for about 10 years, and bought at least 10 phones for myself and family or friends.I like this system, make you feel in control. I usually keep two tracfone phones at same time, one for backup.

Anonymous said...

Me too, I have two phones in use now and always.

mak624 said...

I have triple min. and my husband has double we both get 90 days.
Been using Tracfone since 2002 always get 90 days. I think you may mean text and data cards. But talk,text and data cards should give you 90 days

mak624 said...

My husband had to purchase a new phone because of 2g but I was told by customer service it will occur sometime in Dec. Don't get caught w/o a 3g phone because your remaining mins. may not carry over, if you wait too long.

Anonymous said...

Yes. I do as well. One as my primary (smartphone) and one as a house phone (feature). Very economical!

Betsy E. said...

What is 2g vs 3G? I have an old trusty Nokia phone that just does calls and texts. Have had it since 2008. Are you saying it will no longer work? And when is the cutoff?

Pat said...

Just purchased minutes for my Iphone 4s andI received 90 days service and tripled on all 3, talk, text and data.

Leah Ferolito said...

I would just like to say that Tracphone is very crappy and they need to hire staff that honors what they tell there customers. I will no longer use them ever again. When signing up they checked my account and i did give them my billing info from past service provider and was approved less than 2 weeks no joke they turned my phone off because it was not comparable, i than tried several other phones for them to tell me that they would not work as well. The person there at there location than tells me to have everything shipped back including my receipts and all sim cards for me to get my money back. That i also need to send them via UPS MAIL address shipping lable to have check sent back in. Costing an addition $13.00 just to get back my refund. This all in November. I call back in Dec. Because my tracking number shows that it was received Nov 22 for them to tell me that my check is being processed. I call today Jan 8 for them to tell me that my claim is denied. When they clearly could have had a person send there receipt via fax for it to be denied. Sounds to me like changes need to be done at their Corporate office in 2018.

Unknown said...

I bought a phone,from TracFone,it wouldn't work.my minutes all disappeared when I had to reactivate my old phone.no one knows anything about it.they won't give minutes back.nightmare to get phone refunded.ripoff!had a TracFone for years,never again!

j.lawatsch said...

just lost another customer, minutes disappeared trying to activate new phone from TracFone.new phone won't work either.had to reactivate old phone.no minutes left.ripoffs won't replace them.had one for years.disappointed.