Anger management failure at the Time Warner Cable store

I always wondered why some Time Warner Cable stores maintain a very visible security presence, often with a uniformed guard stationed in plain sight. This morning, I got my answer.

While visiting a local cable store to exchange a set top box, I ended up behind five other customers, with just a single representative on duty. Seated on the provided couch, I was well-positioned to hear the issues of customers in line before me. It was the usual pattern — a bunch of late-payers wondering how much of their $400 past due cable bill they needed to pay to reconnect service, a customer exchanging a troublesome remote control or turning in unneeded equipment, and one older “gentleman” who clearly spent his morning preparing for a personal indictment of Time Warner’s customer service.

He was in line right before me. I should have realized there was going to be a problem, considering he spent 15 minutes muttering under his breath and mocking the representative’s answers to other customers as he waited his turn.

His moment finally arrived, and he unleashed.

“How do you people sleep at night,” was his opening. “Time Warner Cable sucks.”

And they’re off….

For at least 10 minutes, the woman behind the counter took a relentless verbal, often personal lashing.

Phillip “Next in line after Mr. Angry” Dampier

“I worked for a utility company and I would have been fired if I ever provided service as bad as yours,” was quickly followed by “do you actually train your people?”

It seemed, in-between the insults, this particular customer lost cable service the other day, called Time Warner’s automated attendant, and was erroneously told there was no reported service problem in his area. Finally reaching a live person, the customer service representative quickly repeated that, despite protests that “the whole street is out.”

Over the course of the day, the perturbed customer repeatedly called Time Warner to give regular updates on their conclusion there was no problem.

“There were Time Warner trucks on my street and you people have the nerve to tell me there is no problem,” relayed the man. “I’m glad I don’t have your phone service because even your own people told me not to get it because it was unreliable. I would not have been able to even call you then.”

But the final indignation was the customer’s perception a Time Warner Cable employee ordered him to stay home for a service call the next day.

“How dare you tell me what to do. You people wasted my time and yours and I never had this problem with Dish when I had them,” he lectured. “I don’t know how you guys even stay in business with crappy service like that and you lie to your own customers.”

The employee behind the counter had evidently been well-seasoned by prior encounters with angry customers. While never telling the man she understood his concerns, she did repeatedly tell him she was not the one telling him the things that obviously had upset him.

Other customers watching the display further back in line began to leave the store, noting the man showed no signs of drawing his angerfest to a close.

“I should just go back to Dish,” repeated the man. “You people are just awful and you always have been and you should be ashamed.”

For a few moments, there was silence as the representative looked up information about the customer on her computer. That was her big mistake.

“I am going to back my truck up and just chuck my cable box through your window for all it is worth,” as the relative calm of the eye of Hurricane Angry Guy had now passed on by. “Screw all of you.”

Having self-satisfied himself with his venting, he stormed off slamming the store door open as hard as he could.

“Customer #110 is now being served at window 2,” proclaimed the automated voice.

That was me. I hesitantly approached the desk.

Initially defensive, the customer service person cut me off the moment I took a breath to speak and tartly asked for my phone number.

It should be obvious to any reader here that I am a relentless critic of some of the policies and decisions made by the management of large cable and phone companies like Time Warner Cable. I am also a customer, so technically I could feel entitled to unleash my concerns about the industry as a whole on any employee of the cable company. But that would be wrong.

Taking your frustrations out on a customer service representative that had nothing to do with creating a problem will not solve the problem. Hurling a tirade of personal, verbal abuse is simply unacceptable.

If Time Warner Cable made the mistake, calmly discussing the problem without yelling at the representative would have probably netted the customer a customer courtesy credit and an apology. Asking the representative what she could do to alleviate or compensate for a problem gives them a chance to help. Putting them under a state of siege is a sure way to shut them down, hoping you will leave as quickly as possible.

In short, nobody deserves to be treated the way this representative was this morning.

Being affable got me a lot farther. The representative’s initial defensiveness quickly dissipated and she went out of her way to address concerns and even offered things I did not request. When it was all over, I thanked her for her help and she returned the courtesy wishing me a great day.

Some people believe being difficult and browbeating customer service will get them satisfaction. But I have found that remembering the “three P’s” of customer <-> customer service interaction work far better:

1. Be polite. If you have a problem with your provider, don’t assign blame to the one person that might be able to alleviate the problem. Calmly explain what the company did wrong in your eyes and empower and encourage the customer service agent to be your ally to resolve the problem. Making things personal puts anyone on the defensive, which guarantees less interaction, not more. Treat people the way you expect to be treated.
2. Be persistent. If the offered solutions don’t work for you, let them know in a calm voice that their suggested resolution is insufficient. Ask them if there is anything else they can do to resolve an issue or compensate you. If they seem unable to help, ask them if a supervisor could.
3. Be persuasive. Reminding a customer service agent you appreciate their help and that, as a long standing customer, you want to preserve a positive attitude about your provider gives them the incentive to go further for you. If necessary, remind them that a happy customer stays a customer. An unhappy one leaves and tells everyone they know. Keep things business-like and keep your anger in check.

[flv width=”448″ height=”276″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/David Cay Johnston The Fine Print How Big Companies Use Plain English to Rob You Blind 9-19-12.mp4[/flv]

Fellow Brighton, N.Y. resident and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston hits the nail right on the head describing the Big Telecom Swindle that promised America it was going to get something magical called “the information superhighway.”

Over a half-trillion dollars in rate increases later, AT&T and Verizon instead spent a lot of that money on an enormously profitable wireless business that redefines the average American family’s monthly phone bill at $100+. Johnston talks about the broken industry promises of ubiquitous broadband, leaving millions of potential FiOS and U-verse customers behind.

With vast lobbying arms, large cable and phone companies have manipulated public policy to assure they can gouge customers, shortchange workers, and erect barriers to fair play. If consumers don’t pay attention, politicians armed with fat campaign contributions will continue to represent corporate interests, not those of the average American.  

[Note to Mr. Johnston: He isn’t the only reporter paying attention. Hat tip to Stop the Cap! reader Pat McDermott who shared the video.]  (17 minutes)

Comcast cable subscribers in Mattapoisett want less bundling and fewer fees.

They and everyone else.

This month, the 6,000 local residents of the small coastal town in southeastern Massachusetts got the opportunity to voice their concerns about Comcast Cable’s performance before the Board of Selectmen at an open town meeting contemplating the renewal of the cable operator’s five year franchise agreement.

The Sippican Week covered the proceedings:

Subscription plans and fees were the main concerns voiced by residents at the meeting.

“I’m just here to see if there is any way we can unbundle or offer some of the channels a la carte, rather than have to pay an exorbitant fee for the channels that are bundled at the different levels,” said Herb Webb.

“Instead of these large packages you have to buy, they could break them up into smaller sub-packages,” said Selectman Tyler Macallister. “Get some feedback from the town and develop packages specially for Mattapoisett.”

Resident Bob Spooner also questioned the $2 fee subscribers are charged for each cable box in addition to their main TV.

“What about the people who have four or five TVs,” said Spooner. “That’s another six or eight dollars a month.”

Macallister agreed, “I’m already paying for those channels, but now I have to pay $2 to get it.”

Selectmen chair Jordan Collyer tried to answer residents’ concerns, much like any local town or city official facing similar complaints would — with understanding and little else. After all, Comcast operates in a largely deregulated marketplace and need not fear threats from elected officials.

Local governments have no say over a cable company’s pricing for its most popular tiers of service, cannot dictate matters of channel bundling or equipment fees, and have little recourse beyond taking bids from other operators willing to serve when an incumbent company’s franchise goes unrenewed.

But that almost never happens. No major cable operator will offer to replace another major operator, meaning the chances that Time Warner Cable, Cox, Cablevision, or Bright House Networks would respond favorably to a request are effectively zero.

But parts of Mattapoisett are lucky enough to at least have a competitive option — Verizon FiOS, although that company also charges for set top equipment and bundles channels together. The local government has little control over Verizon’s service either.

One alternative open to residents and the local government is to support the construction of a community-owned provider that could, as much as programming contracts allow, respond more effectively to these kinds of concerns. Under current regulatory policies, that is about the only way Mattapoisett, and towns like it, can guarantee the presence of a responsive provider ready to meet the collective needs of the community.

Phillip “Tollbooths are not innovation” Dampier

Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski last week wrote a guest editorial on TechCrunch espousing the benefits of faster broadband networks, but the advances he celebrates often come with innovation-killing usage caps and overlimit fees he continues to ignore.

We feel the need – the need for speed. As Tom Friedman and others have written, in this flat global economy a strategic bandwidth advantage will help keep the U.S. as the home and most desired destination for the world’s greatest innovators and entrepreneurs.

[…] But progress isn’t victory, particularly in this fast-moving sector. Challenges to U.S. leadership are real. This is a time to press harder on the gas pedal, not let up. The first challenge is the need for faster and more accessible broadband networks. We need to keep pushing because our global competitors aren’t slowing down. I’ve met with senior government officials and business leaders from every continent, and every one of them is focused on the broadband opportunity. If we in the U.S. don’t foster major investments to extend and expand our broadband infrastructure, somebody else will take the lead.

We need to keep pushing because innovators need next-generation bandwidth for next-generation innovations – genetic sequencing for cancer patients, immersive and creative software to help children learn, ways for small businesses to take advantage of Big Data, and speed- and capacity-heavy innovations we can’t yet imagine.

We need to remove bandwidth as a constraint on our innovators and entrepreneurs. In addition to steadily increasing broadband speed and capacity for consumers and businesses throughout the country, we need – as we said in our National Broadband Plan – “innovation hubs” with super-fast broadband, with speed measured in gigabits, not megabits.

[…]Some argue the private sector will solve these challenges itself, and that all government has to do is get out of the way. I disagree. The private sector must take the lead, but the public sector has a vital though limited role to play.

Among the policy levers government needs to use is the removal of barriers to broadband buildout, lowering the costs of infrastructure deployment with new policies like “Dig Once” that says you should lay fiber when you dig up roads. The President recently issued an Executive Order implementing this idea, suggested in our Broadband Plan. Government must promote competition, which drives innovation and network upgrades.

We must ensure the Internet remains an open platform that continues to enable innovation without permission.

Genachowski

Genachowski’s vision for faster broadband has the noble goal of maintaining competitiveness with the rest of the world and putting the United States back on top in broadband rankings and innovation. But while hobnobbing with his industry friends at recent industry conventions, he may have gotten too close to one of the biggest impediments holding us back — big cable and phone companies merrily working their magic to create a comfortable duopoly with pricing and service plans to match.

Back in the late 1990s, most cable operators thought of broadband as an ancillary service easy enough to operate, but probably hard to monetize. Just like digital cable radio services like Music Choice and DMX, “broadband” would likely appeal only to a tiny subset of customers.

“Back in the 1990s, Time Warner was primarily a TV company in a TV industry.  Broadband then was an innovating and radical thing, and a lot of people thought it was stupid and wouldn’t work,” Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt said in April, 2009.

The launch of “Road Runner” was not the most auspicious marketing effort undertaken by the cable operator. In fact, the service was rarely targeted for price adjustments, hovering at around $40 a month for a decade.

When the Great Recession hit the United States, something unexpected happened. Cable operators discovered people were willing to cancel their cable and phone services, but not their broadband. In fact, as high bandwidth online video became an increasing part of our lives, the cable industry realized they were in the catbird seat to deliver the best broadband experience, and be well-paid for it. With little competition, increasing prices brought little risk and, thanks to the insatiable drive to boost revenue and reduce costs, implementing usage caps to control “excess” usage and costs were within their grasp.

In 2008, when Stop the Cap! launched, only a handful of ISPs had usage caps. Now most providers, with the exception of Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Cablevision, and a handful of others, all have usage allowances and overlimit fee Internet Overcharging schemes to further pad their bottom lines.

Innovation: Rationing Your Internet Experience — Stick to e-mail and web pages.

Genachowski has completely ignored the growing pervasiveness of usage caps, and even excused them as an experiment in marketplace innovation. But limits on broadband usage will also limit the broadband innovation revolution he wants, especially when most Americans have just one or two realistic choices for broadband service:

1. Usage caps are the product of artificial scarcity. Rationing Internet usage, even with now-pervasive cost-effective upgrades like DOCSIS 3, simply does not make sense (but it will make dollars). Cable operators are switching off analog television service to free up bandwidth to provider faster Internet speed and fatten the pipeline that delivers it. They have plenty of capacity, but continue to proclaim they must limit usage for “fairness” reasons, without providing a single shred of evidence to prove the need for usage caps. Consumers will self-ration just to avoid the prospect of being cut off or handed a bill with overlimit fees.
2. Usage caps make faster speeds irrelevant. Selling customers premium-priced, super fast broadband speed is hardly compelling when accompanied by usage caps that constrain the benefits of buying. Why pay $20-50 more for faster speeds when customers cannot take practical advantage of them. Customers using their Internet service to browse web pages and read e-mail have no interest in upgrading to 30+Mbps. Customers streaming video or moving large files do.
3. Usage caps retard innovation. Google’s new 1Gbps fiber optic network was built on the premise that usage caps were unnecessary on a fiber-based network and would retard innovation. Developing the next generation of innovative apps that Genachowski celebrates will never happen if developers are discouraged by Internet usage toll booths and stop signs. The cost to provide the service is not largely dependent on customer usage. It is the initial price of last mile infrastructure that really matters. Both cable and phone companies have reduced their investments to upgrade their networks, and AT&T and Verizon both contemplate getting rid of their rural landlines. Most cable operators paid off their networks years ago.
4. Usage caps create a whole new digital divide.  Time Warner Cable’s discounted Internet Essentials program delivers only a $5 discount with a harsh 5GB usage cap. For an income-challenged home compelled to switch to a provider’s budget plan, the result is a different Internet experience than the rest of us enjoy. Imagine if your home broadband account was limited to 5GB a month. What online services would you have to avoid to stay under the provider’s limit? Traditionally, operators sell the lowest speed tiers with the lowest usage allowances. Slower speeds already offer a disincentive to use high bandwidth services, but many providers typically drive that disincentive home even harder with a paltry allowance that will cost plenty to exceed.
5. Usage caps harm our broadband standing. While Genachowski celebrates increasing broadband speeds, he ignores the fact the rest of the world is moving away from usage caps even as the United States moves towards them. Both Australia and New Zealand elected to construct their own national fiber networks in large part because the heavily usage-capped experience was holding both countries back. Usage caps are a product of a barely competitive market.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bandwidth Caps 7-2011.flv[/flv]

Tech News Today debunks providers’ claims that usage caps are fair and control those who “overuse” their networks, noting the same phone companies (AT&T) pushing for usage caps are also moving voice calling to unlimited service plans. (August, 2011) (4 minutes)

The last time Comcast charged less per day than the cost of a cup of coffee, they used this logo.

Comcast is raising rates on its Atlanta-area customers effective Oct. 1.

“Despite working hard to keep down our prices, we are continuing to experience increased costs, including rising programming expenses, while also investing in next-generation technologies that deliver new innovations,” said Brian Farley, a spokesperson from Comcast. ” This year alone, we’ve added 15 new channels in in metro Atlanta – including Disney Junior, ShopNBC and ESPN Goal Line – and made our programming available on additional screens.”

It is uncertain how many Atlanta area customers were clamoring for Comcast to add ShopNBC — a network Comcast now owns with the purchase of NBC-Universal, much less pay extra for it.

Comcast expects most customers will see increases averaging $3 a month on their October bills. But the cable operator also took time to remind customers of the incredible value cable television still offers Atlanta:

Comcast: $2.28 a day. A cup of coffee at the Atlanta Diner? $1.65

“At just a few dollars a day, cable is about the price of a cup of coffee and significantly less expensive than taking a family to the movies or a sporting event,” Farley said.

Perhaps, but not always.

Comcast charges just under $70 for its popular Xfinity Digital TV Starter package — around $2.28 a day. Atlanta-area Regal Theaters charge around $11 a ticket — $44 for a family of four. The Atlanta Diner charges $1.65 for a cup of coffee (with free refills). Assuming you visited them for 30 days, your coffee tab would run $49.50, still much less than what Comcast charges every month.

More than a decade ago, cable operators used to claim their service was still less than a cup of coffee. It actually still might be, assuming your cup of coffee comes from Starbucks.