Why I will never order service from a cable company ever again
Spoiler Alert: Their customer service sucks.
Two years ago when I called Cox Communications to set up cable service for my parents, it took all of 10 minutes. Today, I went to their website to disconnect that service. There is no way to do that without talking to a representative. That’s a huge red flag right there. I figured I would use the chat window as I was on hold waiting for a representative with Social Security (the wait for which was estimated at 47 minutes - I hung up after 85). The process of disconnecting my parent’s cable service was worse. The first person I chatted with couldn’t help me so they transferred me to someone else. That person first asked me to confirm my identity which was odd because I was already logged into the account. Then he asked me to confirm that I indeed wish to disconnect the service. I explained that my father no longer watches TV or uses the Internet. He then asked if anyone else in the household could use it. I explained that my mother has passed away recently and even she had not used it in a long time. He asked me to give him a few minutes to work on my account.
The were many pauses in between his queries. 58 minutes after I began contact with Cox, they confirmed the service was now disconnected. All this delay was almost certainly done intentionally with the hope that customers will get tired of waiting and not complete the disconnect, providing Cox with a bit more revenue from the extra week or so before the customer finally endures long enough to disconnect their service. This might provide the cable company with a short term gain but it’s a long term loss not only for them but for the entire industry. Cable companies are known for having horrible customer service. It’s as if the companies just accept this as par for the course now.
I’ve heard such horror stories about Comcast that I have a hard time imaging circumstances under which I would willingly be a customer of theirs. The amazing thing about all of this is that these companies are providing a service and in service businesses, customer service is vital. It can be the difference between winning a customer’s business or not.
Worse, there’s no way that it makes sense for Cox and other cable companies to put customers through this. Customers will eventually disconnect wasting a lot of the customer service reps time. If instead they simply allowed the customer to login to their account and click a Disconnect Service button, it would cost them nothing and they wouldn’t have the no doubt high turnover rate in their customer service centers because who wants to deal with unhappy soon-to-be ex-customers all day long? Studies show that if you do right by your customer, on average they will tell 3 others. However, when you do wrong by them, on average they tell 11 others. This is me telling at least 11 others.
This experience was just another reminder to me that I will never again be a customer of any cable company. We haven’t had cable service in our house in years. We stream everything and get our Internet service from AT&T. We use T-Mobile for our cellular service. Every customer service experience I have had with them was quite good. That fact alone would likely keep me from ever switching. I can’t stand being treated poorly by a company that is supposed to be providing me with a service.