The struggle between cablecos and telcos to wrangle the elusive and almighty customer dollar is still in full effect. With neither side even approaching concession, each wields its respective technology in an attempt to maximize service offerings, reduce churn, and increase ARPU. When’s it going to give? What will it take for one technology to win out and be lifted up as the gold standard for connectivity, and be viewed universally as the best option for video, voice, and data, relegating the other to hang out with BetaMax, slide rules, and astrolabes in the land of obsolescence.
At this point, much conventional wisdom in the industry is that cable has a definite edge in moving toward the single bill ideal. Cable internet and video are strong and proven technologies, and there can no longer be any debate about whether or not VoIP is “ready for primetime.” Many consider telcos to be at a disadvantage, with video rollouts being at the mercy of massive fiber deployments.
Bill Kula of Verizon, however, begs to differ. “We have a passive optical network. We’re employing GPON technology. We’ve tested, quite successfully, pumping 100 megabits into the home.” By the end of 2009, Kula says that Verizon will have its all-fiber network in place for well over 12 million homes.
Then maybe the gap between cablecos and telcos is more easily spanned than some suggest. While conventional wisdom dictates that the quantity and quality of service offerings will ultimately determine the victor, another factor cannot go unrecognized: Customer Satisfaction. The battle between the technologies is only as important as the ability of each to deliver top-quality content, and maintain customer loyalty through gracious, speedy, and precise customer service. There are many differing philosophies on how to best approach this dilemma, with each supporting myriad pros and cons. Ultimately, the goal is to keep customers happy without diverting resources, financial or human, from other important facets of the business.
A recent US News and World Report study states that 68% of customers who stop buying from a particular business do so because of "employee indifference toward their need and wants," whereas only 14% do so because of dissatisfaction with the product itself. The evidence, whether empirical or anecdotal, is not particularly sunny for most major SPs. It comes as no surprise that online message boards and blogs are generally brimming with discontent regarding virtually every SP. Then again, how many times have you read volumes and volumes of message board postings about how much people LOVE their service providers? However, even if these anecdotes can be written off as outliers by phone and cable companies, other prospective customers are not so easily swayed. One displeased customer with a loud enough voice (or a Blogger account) can have an effect on an SPs bottom line.
So where is the trouble? One major complaint circling around has to do with excessive automation or underqualified CSRs. While some automation is completely necessary, and even the most naive customer hardly expects pleasant, live, switchboard operators handling every incoming call to a major service provider, the impersonal feel of multiple, lengthy, and cold automated messages does little to give any customer a sense of importance.
Perhaps even more difficult is what happens once a customer actually gets a real person on the line. Is that rep able to make decisions and fix problems to make the customer happy?
A positive customer service program “involves more than telling your employees how to treat customers right,” says David Stauffer of
"...the impersonal feel of multiple, lengthy, and cold automated messages does little to give any customer a sense of importance. "
the Harvard Management Update. “You've got to give employees the authority and tools to decide the right way to treat customers. Your front-line people must be able to decide what to do on the spot.”
This approach, of attempting first call resolution, is also the backbone of the philosophy of a very different service provider, CLEC McLeod USA. “We’ve done away with voicemail jail,” says Greg Crosby of McLeod. “The person who answers your call is the person who is responsible for fixing your problem.” Crosby states that McLeod is able to ensure first-call satisfaction about 65% of the time, and uses other techniques, like conferencing-in other departments rather than transferring calls, for many problems in which the first CSR is unable to fully handle the issue. McLeod and others have also instituted recertification and evaluation programs to ensure that all representatives are consistently delivering knowledgeable and capable service.
Indeed the companies who receive consistently high marks in customer service strive to do just that. David Grabert, of Cox Communications says that “our Customer Care representatives are empowered to make decisions that will help them to resolve customer issues on their first call, a first call resolution approach.” That may have something to do with Cox leading JD Power and Associates polls for overall customer satisfaction in all-distance telephone service. The company topped surveys in three of six regions in 2006, and was the lone cable company on top in any region in 2005.
However, there may be indications that other cable companies are not quite so keen on proactive approaches to customer care. Comcast, the largest cable provider in the US, has received a huge amount of negative press about its customer service, with entire websites dedicated to providing negative feedback about the company. Some of the negative press, like the widely circulated video of a Comcast technician falling asleep on a customer’s couch while on hold with the company, is inflammatory, but could be written off as an outlier. The same could be true for the episode of a Chicago Comcast customer receiving a bill with a less-than-flattering nickname in place of her actual name. However, repeated anecdotes do not bode well for public perception, as there is no doubt that many customers do not make decisions based on empirical evidence, but rather a fusion of many small factors, coming together to create an overall impression of a company. While Comcast could not be reached for comment, the company seems to be taking some cues from the previous experiences, and is constructing new, state-of-the art call-centers to potentially redeem the company’s reputation for customer service.
Pipeline Publishing, Volume 3, Issue 5 
