Charter Communications rolls out new customer program

Charter Communications logo

Charter Communications says it will push all-in to rebuild its customer service, and the cable giant is backing up the new promises with greenbacks.

Cable companies rarely make top-10 lists for customer service, and Charter has so far been no exception. The company recently was given a "very poor" rating in a recent study of 10,000 customers by research firm Tempkin Group. Charter, along with Earthlink, was the lowest-rated company in the study, which also saw Comcast, AT&T and Verizon receive "poor" ratings.

"Terrible customer service remains an epidemic within the Internet services and TV services industries," said Bruce Tempkin, the author of the study.

But Charter is taking drastic steps to change the way it deals with customers, including a groundbreaking guarantee that if customers aren't happy with their service, they'll get $20.

Any customer without service for 24 hours, or a customer whose technician misses an appointment will receive a $20 credit. Furthermore, any customer who isn't happy with their service within the first 30 days can get all their money back, the company says.

"Our customer guarentee does take it a little bit further than some other guarantees that you may seen," said spokeswoman Kristina Hill. "We really want to deliver the products and services our customers expect from us, no matter what the surveys and rankings say."

Charter, which emerged from bankruptcy in late 2009, has begun spending more on its infrastructure and training, officials said, in an attempt to make service more stable and problems easier to solve.

"We were at a place that we needed to protect and watch expenses, but with our new finance sheet the most important thing is taking care of our customers," said Aimee Pfannenstiel, vice president and general manager of Charter's Tennessee operations.

In the Chattanooga area, Charter serves Cleveland, Tenn.; Jasper, Tenn.; Chatsworth, Ga.; Dalton, Ga.; Ringgold, Ga. and Trenton, Ga., she said. In all of Tennessee the company spent $83 million on infrastructure improvements in 2011, and a total of $250 million since it emerged from bankruptcy in 2009.

"In the past, we've focused on -- I hate to say it -- demand maintance," Pfannenstiel said, meaning the company waited for a problem to appear before it took action. "Now we're focused on preventative maintenance, and we're putting our money where our mouth is."

The cable giant, controlled by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, is also guaranteeing that problems will be solved with one phone call, and that the company -- not customers -- will take responsibility for seeing solutions through to their conclusion.

"Some problems are fairly detailed and they take monitoring, but we just stay on it," Pfannenstiel said.

Even company executives have been retrained over the past two years, to make sure that frontline service representatives have the tools they need by being "servant leaders," she said.

"Our challenge is not only to bring new customers in the right way, but to change the perception of those loyal customers who have stuck through us in thick and thin, and to make sure they know that we know where our bread is buttered," Pfannenstiel said.

There are already some positive signs stemming from the company's efforts to bolster its telecommunications network.

PCMag.com rated Charter as one of the fastest nationwide Internet service providers using a test that measures raw download and upload speed. The company's satisfaction rate for new customers is already up 35 percent over tenured customers, she said, and with 98 percent of customer appointments already within the two-hour appointment window, Charter may not have to hand out many $20 coupons.

But some challenges remain.

About 215,000 cord-cutters cancelled TV service in 2011, even as 228,000 signed up for broadband Internet, according to the publicly-traded company's annual report. Charter still depends more heavily on video revenues, which totalled $892 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to $442 million for its Internet service.

Despite some good news in the form of increasing revenues, the company also increased its losses in the year to $370 million from about $230 million the prior year.

However, Charter spokeswoman Hill feels that the company is headed in the right direction.

"We really want to deliver the products and services our customers expect from us, no matter what the surveys and rankings say," Hill said. "Our customers are the catalyst for change -- that's really what's fueling all of this."

Contact staff writer Ellis Smith at esmith@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6315.