Despite well-backed pledges to change behavior by the No. 1 operator, Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), the cable industry continues to deliver terrible scores in key customer satisfaction polls.
In fact, despite Comcast's recently announced $300 million investment in customer experience, there's not much optimistic about Consumer Reports latest consumer survey on telecommunications services.
Consumer Reports found that 20 out of 24 pay-TV service providers had the lowest scores for value. For rankings of those packaging TV and Internet services, mid-sized, Midwest-dispersed cable operator Mediacom finished dead last, just behind Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC).
"Along with death and taxes, lousy cable service seems to be one of life's certainties," the report states. Comcast and Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) were ranked only slightly higher.
TWC did respond to a CNET inquiry for comment, noting, "Today, more than 90 percent of all our appointments are one-hour windows or specific time of day. We're bringing dramatically faster Internet speeds and more than 20,000 on-demand choices to customers in markets throughout the country, and we've also introduced a new six-tuner, 1-terabyte DVR to meet viewer demand. And we're going to keep working every day to make TWC the most reliable, highest-value choice in the areas we serve."
More happily, Armstrong and WOW (WideOpenWest) were the top performers in each of the categories they were ranked. And Verizon FiOS (NYSE: VZ), DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) and Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) scored the highest among TV service providers.
Also notable: Among the 42 percent of respondents who said they recently contacted their TV/Internet service provider to get a better deal, nearly half (45 percent) said their bundle price was dropped by up to $50 per month.
For more:
- read this CNET story
- read this Consumer Reports post
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