2012 Customer Service Hall of Shame
"Poor" rating: 20.8%
What is it with cable TV? Every year, that industry comes up short in the eyes of customers in our survey.
Time Warner Cable (TWC) is just one of the pay-television services to appear all six years in the MSN Money Customer Service Hall of Shame.
"While the range of services offered by the industry is larger than ever, reliability and cost are hurdles along the path to higher customer satisfaction," Claes Fornell, who developed the American Customer Service Index, wrote in May, when ACSI also found the industry lagging.
"Service providers need to improve reliability without upping prices, which may be a tough balancing act in an economy where the monthly cost of TV service can rival that of energy utilities," he continued.
But as ACSI found, some do much better than others. Verizon Communications' (VZ) fiber-optic service scored far better on its survey, and the company has yet to appear in our Hall of Shame.
As with the others on our list, Time Warner Cable did improve its raw score. In previous years, from 29% to 33.5% of respondents called its service "poor."
Time Warner Cable declined to comment.
Time Warner Cable provides some combination of cable television, Internet and phone service to 14.5 million homes and businesses in five geographic regions. It reported revenue of $19.68 billion in 2011 and profit of $1.67 billion, a 27% increase over 2010.
The company is experimenting with metered broadband, a controversial strategy as streaming video grows in popularity and adds to network demand. Critics question whether the move is an attempt to recoup losses from flat cable-TV subscriptions. By contrast, Internet subscriptions are growing.
Last summer, Time Warner Cable admitted to incorrectly processing about 15,000 bills, leading to overcharges in some cases.
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