So the cable companies are hemmoraghing customers because of poor CS...

Jstas

...now they are freaking out and making changes.

http://skunkpost.com/news.sp?newsId=2449

Revenge of the cable customer
story posted May 23, 2010 4:36 PM
Now the cable companies need US!

DEBORAH YAO,AP Business Writer

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — For far too long, cable customers fumed as they waited in vain for the cable guy to show up. When he did come, sometimes it took multiple visits to fix outages. Some customers grappled with billing mistakes that took months to resolve. And cable prices went up every year.

Now it may be the cable customer's turn for revenge.

Cable TV operators are trying to treat their customers better. Consumers now can get a 30-day money-back guarantee from at least two major cable companies. Soon subscribers might set specific times for technician visits and get their orders confirmed in writing.

These sound like simple or even obvious steps, but they address longtime complaints about the cable TV business.

Cable companies are forced to do it because of intensifying competition from satellite TV and phone companies that offer video — and from people disconnecting subscription TV services altogether to watch videos online.

And people are leaving. In 2006, cable TV companies had 68.5 million video customers. The number fell to 63.3 million in 2009, according to research firm In-Stat.

"People have a bad opinion of their customer service," said Mike Paxton, principal analyst at In-Stat. "Until (cable) started losing customers, there was no pressure."

It won't be easy to change a poor reputation that was captured in a 1996 "Seinfeld" episode in which Kramer retaliates against his cable company by telling the technician he'll be home between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. but then doesn't show up. In 2007, a Virginia woman was so upset at Comcast Corp.'s customer service that she smashed a keyboard with a hammer in a Comcast service center.

Cable's customer satisfaction ratings have been among the worst of any industry. In the American Customer Satisfaction Index, based on surveys of U.S. households, the four largest cable TV providers — Comcast, Time Warner Cable Inc., Cox Communications Inc. and Charter Communications Inc. — have averaged 59 on a scale of 1 to 100 since 2004, even with some improvement in this year's figures. In the last comparable rankings, cable TV came in below airlines, a business with byzantine fare rules, new fees for baggage and horror stories of passengers trapped for hours on planes.

First cable TV companies tried appealing to customers with discounts. Although overall cable service prices were rising, the companies offered bundles of TV, Internet and phone plans, and threw in some freebies and other promotions. But that only slowed customer defections and didn't halt them.

Now cable companies are trying to do more.

Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV provider, is making incremental changes that it hopes will collectively improve its reputation. It's offering a 30-day money-back guarantee on all services to unhappy customers and a $20 credit if the technician shows up late, even if he had called to say he'd be late. It also is testing a service that lets customers call to get the technician's estimated time of arrival.

Embarrassing snafus such as the hammer incident prompted Comcast to undergo a top-to-bottom assessment of its customer service. Tina Waters, who was named Comcast's first senior vice president of human performance last November, says one-quarter of service agents' performance reviews are now devoted to customer feedback.

Cox, the country's third-largest cable company, is testing the idea of letting customers set service appointments at specific times rather than two-hour windows. The trial is limited to New England and only for the first appointment of the day, at 8 a.m. If successful, the service will be rolled out nationally and eventually to cover the entire day.

This year, Charter Communications Inc. will start giving customers a written confirmation of their orders by e-mail, upon request. The e-mail will spell out the cost of the order, explain the installation process and describe other services. Usually, customers wait for their first bill and hope they don't have to dispute charges.

"No more scribbled notes on a pad by the phone," said spokeswoman Anita Lamont.

That would be welcome news to Marc Pachtman, a lawyer in Boothwyn, Pa., who tussled with Comcast for about 10 months over several issues, including charges on his bill that were higher than the cable package he thought he ordered.

Pachtman said he was charged $51 for cable TV and $46 for Internet after being told it would be $45 for TV and $35 for Internet. He also paid $42 a month for phone service, but Comcast got that right. Eventually, after several calls to Comcast, he got a refund and a six-month promotional plan that combined TV, Internet and phone services for $94 a month, down from around $140 he had been paying.

"I had to do a lot of jumping up and down," Pachtman said. "If they would be forced to confirm things in writing, it should standardize their programs to the point so there's no variation to what customer representatives can say."

It doesn't help that while there are Federal Communications Commission standards for cable customer service, other cable regulations vary based on who is enforcing them. Depending on the location, that could be a state commission, a city council or another body.

Such inconsistent standards, and a near-monopoly on TV service in the areas that cable companies serve, have let them get away with treating customers indifferently for years. The FCC requires cable companies to tell customers if their rates are going up — but that can come in a notice in a local newspaper.

"Practically speaking, nobody reads that stuff," said Ken Fellman, president of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, which represents local officials.

Recently, though, cable companies such as Comcast, Charter and Time Warner Cable have been reaching out to customers through Twitter and other social networking sites to find complaints and resolve problems.

That impressed Steve Curtin of Denver, who tweeted about his Comcast Internet service conking out last spring before calling the cable company. A cable agent reached out to him and got him back online within half an hour.

"I was quite surprised," he said.



Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.

I wonder if it's too late?


Funny thing is, Verizon has been hammered with new customers lately and the service levels are slipping because they can't keep up with the work. I know they are scrambling to get qualified technicians hired and trained as fast as they can in my area. It's gotten so bad that they have stopped new FiOS installation in areas that do not yet have FiOS just to get the areas that do squared away.

Even with all that, Verizon is still stacking up new customers like firewood and Comcast is hammering the media outlets with advertising and enticing rates and promotions to not only get new customers but retain current ones and begging old customers to come back.


And they say it's a "near-monopoly". You know what? Now that there is a more than viable but actually quite reasonable option besides the abuse from the cable companies, people are taking it and voting with their wallets. It's nice not having Comcast as the only game in town anymore. Even if I can't get FiOS right away, I'll see benefits from all the changes indirectly. I just hope Verizon gets it's stuff together soon and runs FiOS in my neighborhood. Apparently, the hold up is that we don't have buried lines in our neighborhood and it is more difficult to string the above ground lines.

cstmar01

I love this line
"Recently, though, cable companies such as Comcast, Charter and Time Warner Cable have been reaching out to customers through Twitter and other social networking sites to find complaints and resolve problems."

You don't need to go to websites or try to search out the problems, they are right there in front of you. If Charter would take the time to LISTEN and then UNDERSTAND what I am saying to them about a problem, things could get resolved, rather they want to argue that you the customer is wrong and they don't have a problem but always must be "user error." I can understand to some point user error but when their own tech shows up at your house and tells you its their fault because they are changing over servers in your area and you'll be having problems for about a month before everything is taken care of, then maybe its time to understand what the customer is saying.

I think the biggest problem too is that a lot of consumers are left with no choice. I was sooo excited to be able to move to a different company but then nicely found out that AT&T doesn't support coverage in my area (yet I get their advertising all the time for high speed internet) and that no one else besides charter offered me internet where I currently live. This is soooo annoying because it forces me to only have one choice and that is where the problem lies, they are so big and control everything the market sucks if you "want to shop around" because its impossible to do.

fatchowmein

For about 6 months, I had lost or snowy signal (Internet and Tv) problems with Time Warner Craple. Everytime we called, we had to go through the CS rep then the phone tech, followed by a tech that showed up at the door (we had to be home). The guy at the door would always blame the box down the street and he didn't work on it (separate service call). That was for one incident. Every time we had a problem, it would be a new ticket and the whole cycle would have to be repeated even though I keep telling them it's the box down the street.

One day, while surfing the channels when it was working, a Time Warner exec was on one of the local public channels saying how proud they were with upgrading the Comcast infrasture (they took over about a year earlier) and that they were almost done. No one on the phone or in person could explain to me what was going on (got the usual "we don't detect a problem in your neighborhood") until I saw that clip on TV.

****.

Rivrrat

While I never intend to go back to cable, Directv's CS is no bed of roses either.

When I was having my HD installed, I had four different techs show up.

The first explained to me that my rg59 wasn't good enough for HD. He couldn't explain to my why that was the first I had heard about that one.

Two different techs on two different days showed up and left because they didn't have a ladder tall enough to reach my roof. Why the first didn't explain that they needed a 28 footer is beyond me.

After I tore their supervisor a new one over that, I explained to him where I worked and what I did, and it was complete BS what they were doing. That's when, I got the good guys to come out and fix me up at the time I told them to be there (they were on time too). they thought it was funny that I got their boss that worked up.

I had a problem a few months ago, they took care on it on one visit this time.

What really pissed me off is they only schedule to half days, so I had to take three vacation days and wait for their dumb asses to tell me why they couldn't hook up my HD.

polkatese

DirecTV employs an army of independent installers that are a hit-and-miss exercise should you ever need their services. I make the habit of quizzing them when they come and about to start working on the problem. I usually tell them exactly what need to be done, and would questioned the logic on anything they advised me to do. One time when I upgrade the dish to a triple LNB, the installer tried to convince me to install it in a different location in the patio's lattices, because they are too lazy to go up the roof (where the old dish was mounted).

Another thing that I would do before or while they are doing the work, I told them that I am going to tip them. Sad but it works. They are a lot easier to work with once they know that they will get beer money for work.

Other than that, I am happy with DirecTV

mmadden28

Jstas wrote: »

...now they are freaking out and making changes.

http://skunkpost.com/news.sp?newsId=2449

...

And they say it's a "near-monopoly". You know what? Now that there is a more than viable but actually quite reasonable option besides the abuse from the cable companies, people are taking it and voting with their wallets. It's nice not having Comcast as the only game in town anymore. Even if I can't get FiOS right away, I'll see benefits from all the changes indirectly. I just hope Verizon gets it's stuff together soon and runs FiOS in my neighborhood. Apparently, the hold up is that we don't have buried lines in our neighborhood and it is more difficult to string the above ground lines.

Amen---I always (ALWAYS) had Comcrapstic service from that cable company that I won't name....time after time after time,CRAPPY Customer Service, messed up billing, added and unnecessary charges for any installs, etc, etc. And they were always sending out inexperienced techs to work on my issues--the tech would call base, only to get half answers from the experienced techs, but the experienced techs were always too busy to fully answer the questions--it was always a load of crap.

One time the tech ran a temp cable from the street to my house to see if that would fix one of my issues. Well that cable sat there for about 3-4 months (iirc) before they finally came out one day and buried a new line permanently (its a good thing it wasn't mowing season...). I was a little surprised by that since they never asked me if it resolved my problem, and I don't think they even did the 'PA One Call' ( before you dig thing).

When FiOS came to my area a few years ago, I was SUPER DUPER eager to jump ship--and I haven't looked back since. So many locals I know have switched---this simply has to have had some profound impact on htier business

Choice is an awesome thing, especially in what is generally conceived as a monopolized market (at least IMHO), and in some cases it still is. Some areas in my township still can't choose. I think some homeowner associations and Apt complexes strict deals with Comcrapstic before FiOS moved in and so they are locked in/restricted to just them. The individual owners still have no choice- not even satellite.

Of course I understand that there is always the choice of Over The Air broadcasts and rentals, but that doesn't necessarily help with Internet. And the thing that really sucks there is that if you don't subscribe to the TV service, they rape you in higher prices for the internet service when standalone.

My only complain about FiOS, was that even though I watched them bury the line and install the junction box in my neighborhood (on my property no less), they still said it wasn't available. Almost weekly I would get a mailing that said FiOS was available in my neighborhood. So I waited and waited and kept checking-the answer was always "Sorry its not available yet). A neighbor up the street had an active FiOS connection so why couldn't I??? Finally a YEAR LATER, they finally figured it all out and it turned out thier tracking database was incorrect. WTF!!! it took them almost a year to correct a database tracking error for something that I kept calling and calling and calling about??? What database was their marketing department using that was sending me the mailings?---I just attribute it to growing pains for a new branch of service, but that really irked me, esp since I was so eager to become a paying customer.

anyway--I could go on all day about cable provider/service complaints but...back to work....;)

ryanjoachim

I'm in the same boat you were mmadden...I keep getting the fliers and mailers saying "FIOS Available now!"...only to break my heart when I call and ask about it.

I'm getting desperate here, and tired of paying Comcrap $140 for cable and **** internet.

I want my 50/50!

Knucklehead

I have Cox cable and Verizon in my area, I chose to stay with Cox after my neighbors reported awful CS from Verizon.

WilliamM2

Last week Charter deleted my wife's email account. She has had the same account for 12 years now. They claim it was closed due to inactivity, although she uses it daily, and had sent and received emails earlier that very same day! It took three and a half hours on the phone to get it re-activated, no one could explain to me how it could possibly take that long to re-activate an account, or why they deemed it in-active, ridiculous.

I also signed up for a new package a couple of months ago for phone, internet, and TV at a fantastic price. After failing to show up twice to install it, I called and cancelled the new service. I already have cable and TV from them, how hard could it be to come hook up the phone? Of course they billed me for the new service anyways, another hour on the phone to straighten that out.

Doesn't seem like service is improving much to me.

Echosphere

I would never ever use the email accounts given to me by the cable companies. Egads!

I do have to say I am waiting for FiOS!! Competition, here ye come!

TouchOfEvil

I am forced to use Charter in my area and it blows. We have never had decent picture quality and the internet is way slower than when i had cox. I wish i had another option but charter is the only thing out here.
They almost never show up when you are told...i had them not show 3 times in a row before someone finally came out only to be told the same crap as normal. It's not their gear it's gotta be something else yet they couldn't tell me what that something else is. I hate Charter!!!!!