As a member of the Cable community and a former executive for one of Cable’s key vendors, I’m interested in what my colleagues and neighbors think about cable. The topic comes up often in casual communications as people often ask, “what do you do for a living ?” My experience with their reactions over the years when I tell people I work in the cable tv industry has always been less than satisfactory. Its seems people still have the movie “The Cable Guy” as their base perception of the industry so they immediately launch into some topic or issue to highlight their dissatisfaction; Increasing service costs, clunky equipment, unprofessional service technicians, placed on hold and transferred too many times without proper problem resolution…the list goes on.
The bottom line, there is a real or perceived dissatisfaction with the industry as a whole. We all know the great strides cable is making using technology to innovate the customer experience design and increasing the overall customer experience. The acid test remains, will a random consumer have something positive to say about the industry. This random consumer has been hard to find in my experience but recently I’ve had one person give glowing positive reviews about the voice recognition feature in their remote. I won’t name the cable provider, but this feature is a great example of adding a straightforward technology in an easy to use and understood manner. There are other examples in this vein not offered by cable such as real time signal quality monitoring and offering refunds for poor video quality. At least one popular streaming service has this feature and I am always pleasantly surprised when the provider sees the issue and informs you before you call.
The ability to pro-actively ensure a satisfactory customer experience will lead to deep customer loyalty and increases in Net Promoter Scores, a measure most operators pay attention to. Pro-actively monitoring and fixing issues such as modems out of spec is key to increased customer satisfaction, reduced trouble calls, and reduced truck rolls. Giving field service personnel the ability and authority to be pro-active is a small step that pays off with happier customers and increased productivity.