Advanced Television

Survey: TV, ISPs deliver worst customer experience

May 27, 2016

TV service providers and Internet Service Providers received the lowest overall customer experience scores, according to the 2016 Temkin Experience Ratings, an annual ranking of companies based on a survey of 10,000 US consumers.

Of the 20 industries covered in the 2016 Temkin Experience Ratings, TV service and ISPs tied with healthcare providers for the lowest average ratings. These industries have been at the bottom of the Ratings for the past four years, and their scores hit an all-time low this year.

The poster child for poor customer experience in these industries—Comcast—was not only the lowest-scoring TV service and Internet Service provider, but was also one of the lowest-scoring companies in the entire Ratings. It ranked 289th overall out of 294 companies for its TV service and ranked 284th overall for its Internet service.

Of the 10 TV service companies Temkin looked at, six received ‘very poor’ ratings (below 50 per cent): Bright House Networks (49 per cent), Charter Communications (48 per cent), Verizon (47 per cent), Time Warner Cable (46 per cent), AT&T (43 per cent), and Comcast (37 per cent). And of the eight Internet service companies we looked at, four received ‘very poor’ ratings: Time Warner Cable (48 per cent), Charter Communications (48 per cent), Cablevision (47 per cent), and Comcast (40 per cent).

“Internet and TV service providers are awful to consumers. The lack of competition continues to fuel this bad experience epidemic,” noted Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group.

At the other end of the spectrum, DirecTV earned the highest score for the TV service industry with a rating of 57 per cent and an overall rank of 182nd, while AOL earned the highest score for the Internet service industry with a rating of 55 per cent and an overall rank of 199th. No company in either industry received anything higher than a ‘poor’ rating.

Only DISH Network (+2 points) and Cox Communication (+3 points) for their TV service and Time Warner Cable (+1 point) for its Internet service improved their ratings between 2015 and 2016. AT&T (-11 points) and Verizon (-9 points) for their TV service and Cablevision (-9 points) for its Internet service declined the most.

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