Just one day after Consumer Reports found declining consumer satisfaction among American consumers using pay-TV services, the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) released a report nearing mirroring the unhappy findings.
In the annual independent survey of 70,000 U.S. consumers, Verizon FiOS (NYSE: VZ) finished atop pay-TV services, with its "71" score rising 4 percent over 2014 and placing it just ahead of AT&T U-verse (flat with last year's results).
Notably, Verizon also finished atop Consumer Reports' telecom satisfaction report, which was released Monday.
ACSI, which polled customers on everything from picture quality to the ease to which they understand their bill to call center responsiveness, ranked DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV), down 1 percent, third in the poll and Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) fourth, with a score flat with 2014.
A flat Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) and Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR), up 5 percent, led the moribund cable sector, with Time Warner Cable (down 9 percent) finishing dead last behind Mediacom (flat).
Those two final MSOs also finished last in the Consumer Reports study, with Mediacom at the absolute bottom.
Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) finished third to last in the ACSI rankings, declining 10 percent in satisfaction in one year, despite its pledged $300 million investment in improved customer experience.
Perhaps most disturbing of all for pay-TV operators, they declined year to year as an industry for every consumer metric except for "website satisfaction."
"Call center satisfaction, for example, went from a 66 score in 2014 to a 62 percent score this year, while picture quality satisfaction dropped from 83 to 80.
Ironically, Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) was the only major MSO to see a rise in Internet service satisfaction, with the company's score ticking up 7 percent to a 58. Comcast finished dead last in the category, declining 2 percent to a 56.
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(Source: ACSI) |
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