My friend Pete Blackshaw has been saying for years that “customer service is the new marketing,” meaning that more and more companies are discovering that the people on the front lines of direct customer contact are having a growing potential to turn customers into brand fans or outraged detractors. Unfortunately, many big, slow, monopolistic companies refuse to see this shift. And it’s time for this customer of Time Warner Cable to put up some meaningful marketing against its poor practices.
Over the weekend, my wife shared the story of her recent frustration with Time Warner Cable. On Friday, May 29, she received an email that stated the company would no longer be accepting payments from our bank’s online bill payment provider. As you might be able to see in the actual email above, this change came with no explanation, no customer service contact to reply to, and only the general website URL for further information. Her reaction: WTF?
And so my lovely wife started to track down what was going on with our cable service. After more than an hour of digging through the website and the back and forth with an IM bot that spit back the same formulaic answers to her questions over and over, she discovered that Time Warner Cable was migrating customers to its own preferred bill-payment system. We had the “opportunity” to sign up for this, of course handing over more personal information and changing our entire bill-paying habits.
This is a horrible example of customer service from start to finish. First, the decision to disallow our preferred method of bill payment, which we use for every other service, is blatantly bad for its customers. Nearly every other company on the planet is embracing NEW options to allow bill payments, from PayPal to mobile phone, in order to provide better service and close the sale. Second, the fact that this significant change in habit came with no explanation and nothing more than a terse email is unfathomable. Only a company with a complete disregard for the customer would do such a thing. A simple email written by an actual human being with some explanation and remorse would have done wonders.
Of course, cable companies are not new to completely screwing over customers in very visible ways. My favorite example is Bob Garfield’s “Comcast Must Die” campaign. A search of any cable company and the words “sucks” or “protest” land on thousands of horror stories from people who have been treated horribly by companies that cling to one of the last market pockets of low competitiveness.
Fortunately some alternatives are starting to break into the market and break up cable companies’ hold on our lives. New competitors are entering the TV market, such as Verizon with its all-fiber FiOS system, and AT&T’s U-verse system. They are bringing down rates in the market and bringing up service levels wherever they go. Meanwhile, some local governments are getting in on the act; in Wilson, N.C., residents organized to create a city-owned broadband network with lower rates and higher speeds than Time Warner. And now a growing number of households are cutting their cable cords altogether and using broadband to download video directly. More than 900,000 people now rely on Web video alone, dealing a significant revenue blow each time it happens.
My family and I are getting ready to move to a new home in a few months. The current owners have been using DirecTV. I think it’s time to give Time Warner the boot and let a new company vie for my business. And while I’m not a heavy commercial watcher, this ad for DirecTV certainly attracts my attention…
This is sooooo infuriating. I too, pay just about everything via online bill pay from my financial institution of choice. If a service provider told me this, I’d be gone as quickly as feasible since. What happened to Time Warner??
Unfortunately, you won’t find better customer service from DirecTV. When my settop box died, I went to Best Buy to get another.
A year later when I moved, I was charged an “early cancellation fee,” even though I’d been their customer for 6 years. They explained by saying that I agreed to their terms of service when I put a new box in service, locking me in for two years from that day. This even though I went to a brick and mortar store and bought my own equipment, and even though I never received a paper copy of this supposed agreement.
Repeated calls to their customer service yielded no relief and only by disputing the charge with my credit card company did I get my $200 back.
They can now spend all the dollars they like on ad buys that ridicule cable companies’ ill-regard for their customers, but firsthand experience tells me they are no different. I don’t know what the dollar value of a new customer acquisition is to DirecTV, but trying to screw me out of $200 has guaranteed that they’ve lost me forever.
Blackshaw is exactly right. If DirecTV treated their customers well, they would have the word of mouth to back up the marketing message they are now trying to get across- that they treat the customer differently.
Thanks for the heads-up on DirecTV, Brent. What a horror story. Maybe we need to start a new services provider!
Bob,
I interviewed with Bridge Worldwide about a year ago and ultimately my family and I decided to stay in North Carolina. Our company is the second largest retailer of DIRECTV in the US, and because of the introduction of the Marketing with Meaning concept, we are making a push online through substantial testing to make an attempt to create more meaning in our Direct Response efforts. (60 days into project, so we have a long way to go…) We met a great company along the way called Marketing Experiments to guide us.
When I joined up here, we got rid of Time Warner and switched to DIRECTV. Not because I work with the brand, but DIRECTV really is the most superior video product on the market that is 100% focused on increasing the customer experience. Also, how else could I watch Bengals games living in NC?
With every product, there will be horror stories. I encourage you to make the switch. If you are interested, let me know and I will personally make sure that you get set up.
Looking forward to the book.
Jason
Bob,
Correct me if I’m wrong but my interpretation of the above letter is that you may continue to PAY the bill through your current online bill provider but you just won’t receive the actual invoice via your online bill provider. I know its a hassle either way because you won’t know how much you have to pay but thought I would just point that out.
eBills are electronic versions of a traditional paper bill that you receive in the mail. Time Warner has a relationship with a third party vendor who allows consumers to receive an eBill version of their traditional paper bill. EBills are less expensive for the merchant to provide (rising cost of postage, cost of paper, etc) and the consumer received the eBill before the traditional paper bill arrives in the mail, so eBills are really a win/win for everyone (including the environment.) Sounds like Time Warner made the decision to discontinue their eBill relationship with their third-party provider., which is truly unfortunate in this day and age.
PS. I work for a third party online bill payment provider, so I live and breathe eBills and online bill payments all day