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Time Warner Cable was one of four companies to hit the top of the poor customer-service list both years of the MSN Money-Zogby International survey.
In this year's survey, 31% of respondents familiar with Time Warner Cable's customer service rated it "poor." (The percentage was a fraction less than No. 7 Bank of America's.) In 2007, 29% rated the cable company "poor."
Alex Dudley, the company's vice president of public relations, said the weak scores were likely due to three factors:
Call volume. The company has 14.5 million customers and receives about 150 million calls a year. "If we had 14 and a half million agents, someone could call, and someone would be available," Dudley said.
Not being able to reach someone by phone is the biggest source of customer complaints, he said. "Folks call, and they want the phone to be picked up by a live person immediately, and anything less is unacceptable." Last year, 63% of customer calls were picked up within 30 seconds, Dudley said.
Complexity of service. Time Warner Cable gives customers one number to call, and its agents must be able to diagnose which service is the source of the problem.
"I think one of the hardest things for people to do is to envision it from the customer representative's point of view: They answer the phone, and you could be calling about anything," Dudley said. "They have to be a jack of all trades to at least get you in the right place."
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Product dependence. Customers use Time Warner Cable's products 10 hours a day, on average. "The good news is that our customers love our services," Dudley said. "That just puts a lot of pressure on the service to work all the time. When people's lifeline to all things digital is interrupted, they get upset about it."
Time Warner Cable reported $4.4 billion in profit last year. Its sales have grown an average of 4.6% annually over the past five years.
In the MSN Money-Zogby survey, of the respondents familiar with the company's customer service, 31% rated it "fair," 30% "good" and 9% "excellent."
Dudley said Time Warner Cable continually strives to improve customer service. This year, the company is upgrading its customer-service tools, balancing the need for staff with company profitability and rolling out self-help tools. That includes home-installation kits and online chat help.
"The customer is everything," Dudley said. "And ultimately, they are the boss, and they can vote with their feet, and that makes it very important to us."
Published May 28, 2008
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