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.,…