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posted by janrinok on Friday June 05 2015, @03:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-watch-the-box dept.

Vikas Bajaj writes in The New York Times that the results are in and the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) shows that customer satisfaction with cable TV, Internet and phone service providers have declined to a seven-year low. Of the 43 industries on which the survey solicits opinions, TV and Internet companies tied for last place in customer satisfaction. "Internet and TV have always been among the lowest scoring," says David VanAmburg, director of the Index. "But this year they're at the very bottom."

The study, which is based on more than 14,000 consumer surveys, gives companies a rating from 0 to 100. The ACSI reports huge drops in customer satisfaction for Comcast and Time Warner Cable, following their failed merger. Already one of the lowest-scoring companies in the ACSI, Comcast sheds 10 percent to a customer satisfaction score of 54. Meanwhile, Time Warner Cable earns the distinction as least-satisfying company in the Index after falling 9 percent to 51. Joining Time Warner Cable in the basement is ACSI newcomer Mediacom Communications (51), which serves smaller markets in the Midwest and South. "Customer service in these industries has long been bad," says VanAmburg of Internet and TV providers. "They don't have a good business model for handling inquiries with efficiency and respect. It goes back a decade plus."

Even though those complaints are longstanding, customer frustration has risen along with the ever-rising prices. "You compound all that with the prices customers are paying, and that's the final straw," says VanAmburg. "They're opening bills each month and saying 'I'm paying how much?'" In an age of over-the-top viewing options like Hulu and Netflix, customer dissatisfaction may increasingly translate to companies' bottom lines. "There was a time when pay TV could get away with discontented users without being penalized by revenue losses from defecting customers," says Claes Fornell, chairman and founder of the Index. "But those days are over."


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @04:32AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @04:32AM (#192370)

    I'm an American and I don't loathe the cable companies. I don't have cable, I've never had cable, and I never will have cable. See? Apathy is nothing like loathing. Apathy is better.

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  • (Score: 2) by Marand on Friday June 05 2015, @06:53AM

    by Marand (1081) on Friday June 05 2015, @06:53AM (#192394) Journal

    I'm an American and I don't loathe the cable companies. I don't have cable, I've never had cable, and I never will have cable. See? Apathy is nothing like loathing. Apathy is better

    You must be this guy [theonion.com]. I never expected to meet someone famous like you!

    (Fifteen years later and that link is still relevant.)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @11:48AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @11:48AM (#192464)

      It's relevant because his attitude is mostly justified.

      • (Score: 2) by Marand on Friday June 05 2015, @07:00PM

        by Marand (1081) on Friday June 05 2015, @07:00PM (#192630) Journal

        It's relevant because his attitude is mostly justified.

        No, it's relevant because, regardless of the topic, there's always going to be someone that tries to use it as a way to proclaim superiority over the plebs that find the topic relevant. Especially if the topic is something fairly popular or common.

        Discussion about television: "Oh, people still watch TV? Pfft, I haven't had cable in twenty years."
        Discussion about Windows: "Oh, people still use Windows? Pfft, it's crap, I've used [BSD|Linux|OS X] since 2000."
        Discussion about music: "Oh, people still buy [CDs|mp3s]? Pfft, they're crap, I prefer the warmth of vinyl."

        Sometimes the person makes a good point or two while making these assertions, but the way it's usually presented makes it a good target for teasing. The original AC comment, for example, wouldn't have sounded like an Onion article if he mentioned being apathetic toward cable rather than hating it without the "I don't have it, never have, never will" bit at the end.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @07:07AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @07:07AM (#192401)

    I had cable once... when I was in an apartment complex.

    I found out pretty quick there was nothing special about cable. Sure, hundreds of channels. Most of them useless. Shopping channels. Foreign channels. Religious channels.

    Maybe one channel in twenty had something interesting. Sometimes.

    I remember when they started Macrovisioning stuff, the glamour of cable started dropping off pretty fast. Very inconvenient to synchronize my availability to their airing time. At that time, I began to have high interest in copyright enforcement circumvention technology... known at that time as a sync regenerator ... to undo Macrovision.

    Ads? I found out pretty quick there were ads all over cable TV too.

    It seemed that the main reason they were pushing cable is to find a group of people who did not mind paying for stuff. Once they got cable, now they had invited into their home yet another voice urging them to "pay per view". This was directed at people who had already paid for cable. Now they want a surcharge - now that they have an account to bill to.

    I guess I could see where this was going.

    ( One of the main problems I had with them is they had some stuff I would have liked to see, but I sure did not want it going into a database somewhere that I had paid to see it! I probably would have watched it if I knew nobody else knew I was watching it. You know what kind of stuff I am talking about - being I am not so good at getting the real thing myself, I make do with seeing someone else succeed. Maybe pick up a few pointers. No one would teach this kind of stuff in either church or college, and certainly no Bible respecting home would teach this kind of stuff to their kid, but its a part of life, and missing out on it only meant I would fail to have a family of my own.)

    I believe now the internet has made the whole gamut of televised entertainment obsolete, unless you are a sports addict which needs to see games as they are played - and are willing to pay the price to never miss a pitch. As far as I am concerned, I find watching televised sports, even live sports, about as fulfilling as watching kids play videogames at the pizza parlor. YouTube alone would probably satisfy anything I would want for the rest of my life.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @02:13PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @02:13PM (#192535)

    Kids these days...