TV Service Providers Actually Got Worse June 14, 2009
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Customer Experience Index, Customer experience.Tags: Bright House, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, DirecTV, DISH Network/EchoStar, Time Warner Cable
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In Forrester’s 2008 Customer Experience Index (CxPi), we ranked 113 companies across 12 industries. I recently published a snapshot of the results for TV service providers (Bright House, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, DirecTV, DISH Network/EchoStar, Time Warner Cable, and “other cable TV provider”). Here are some highlights of the eight TV service providers on the list:
- Experiences are “very poor” and falling fast. As a group, TV service providers ended up with a “very poor” rating of 52%; the next to lowest score for any industry we examined. But it’s the trend that’s most concerning. The industry experienced an eighth point drop from its 2007 CxPi results, which more than doubled the decline of any other industry.
- DirecTV, Bright House, and “other” are the least bad. With “poor” scores of 63%, DirecTV, Bright House, and “other cable TV provider” came out with the top scores of the group. On the other end of the list, Comcast, Time Warner, and Charter Communications all fell below 45%; representing three of the five worst ratings across all 113 firms in the CxPi.
- None of the firms improved. The providers that we also rated in 2007 didn’t show any improvement. Only “other cable TV providers” stayed the same, while all of the others got worse. Time Warner and Comcast experienced the sharpest decline.
The bottom line: TV service providers need a severe customer experience makeover
No big shock here! Recently, I had Charter scheduled to install additional cable outlets. We were given a window of 8am to 10am. When WE called THEM, they said they were running late. Then they said 10:30. Then they said 11am. Then I said, “forget it, we’re not wasting our whole day waiting for you idiots to show up”.
I sent an email to my whole department at work and posted that experience on my Facebook page…a LOT of people have heard this story now.
The worst is that Comcast and Verizon give “special deals” to their new customers for signing on with their service, but then pull the rug out from under you and charge outrageous prices for the rest of your existence as a customer. Locked and Loaded for Comcast is just the latest scam and scheme to get more money out of customers by getting them hooked on crack and then charging high prices afterward.