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Time Warner Cable Mocks Its CX, Promises Improved Service

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Brian Cantor
Brian Cantor
10/16/2015

Several years ago, Domino’s began openly mocking the quality of its own pizza. The campaign was a method of recapturing customer trust; by acknowledging the inadequacy of the previous product, Domino’s added credibility to its promise of improvement.

Earlier this year, Comcast pledged to improve its customer experience. The pledge came with a multi-pronged plan to provide more efficient and effective service.

Taking cues from both organizations, Time Warner Cable recently launched a branding campaign of its own.

One facet involves mocking the service shortcomings for which the cable industry is commonly associated. Through a set of humorous television commercials, Time Warner mocks frustrating concepts like long hold times and imprecise, unreliable service appointments.

The cable giant accompanies the humorous advertisements with a specific plan to actually improve the service experience. Its plan includes promises to restrict hold time, offer convenient call-backs, adhere to one-hour appointment windows, and address numerous other cable industry stigmas.

While the former is more likely to generate immediate buzz, the latter is how Time Warner Cable will ultimately succeed – or fail – in winning back customers.

Just as Domino’s still needed to actually improve its pizza in conjunction with its television campaign, Time Warner must prove that it can actually remedy the service shortcomings it so playfully, yet powerfully, ridicules.

Time Warner’s Plan

The key tenets of Time Warner’s plan are as follows:

* Customers will never be asked to wait for more than 90 seconds before speaking to a live agent. If Time Warner cannot produce a live agent within that window, it will allow the customer to schedule a callback at a time of his choosing.

* TWC touts 24/7 live chat, which can be accessed via the web or on mobile devices.

* Customers can use the mobile app to request a call from a live agent. All major account functions – including service upgrades and billing – can also be handled through the app.

* TWC provides customers with access to the "Ask TWC" virtual agent. The virtual agent platform allows the customer to "seamlessly" escalate his issue to a live, human agent.

* Customers can now set a one-hour appointment window for all service visits. The customer will also be briefed on the approximate length of the visit before it begins.

* Such appointments can be managed through the "TWC TechTracker" platform, which sends SMS alerts and information to the customer.

* If service goes out, Time Warner Cable will send a technician to the customer’s house within 24 hours.

* Each tech support visit also includes a full audit of all Time Warner services. If the appointment is for installation, the technician will advise the customer on using the relevant products.

*TWC will consistently improve the quality and scope of its product offerings.

What is missing?

On the one hand, Time Warner Cable’s plan is admirable – and ambitious. Instead of simply acknowledging it can do better, Time Warner establishes explicit benchmarks for improvement. In pledging 90-second hold time, on-demand call-back, one-hour appointments, and 24-hour outage visits, Time Warner Cable renders itself accountable for tangible improvement. If it does not deliver what it is advertised, it gives customers the prerogative to be doubly disappointed: Time Warner failed to deliver a desirable service and failed to keep its promise.

On the other hand, Time Warner Cable’s plan attacks some individual elements of the customer experience but does not specifically address some of the more holistic, philosophical components. It addresses some wrongs but does not assure everything will go right.

Consider the following:

* Hold time may be reduced, but what happens once the customer connects to the live agent? Will he be friendly? Will heknow the customer? Will he have the desired answers? Will he be able to solve the actual problem?

o Time Warner Cable’s campaign almost implies that service issues are resolved once the customer connects with a live agent. Consumers familiar with the cable service experience (or, really, any service experience) know the absurdity of that notion. Shortcomings in agent skill, knowledge, affability, and empowerment routinely derail customer service conversations.

* Time Warner touts its multi-channel offerings, which include a mobile app, 24/7 live chat, text-integrated support alerts, and virtual agents. The platforms reflect Time Warner’s acceptance of the new customer communication normal, but are they actually effective?

o My previous interactions with TWC live chat agents suggest they have access to limited information. They also lack the power to address, let alone resolve, major issues. Time Warner Cable’s pledge does explicitly not confirm a change to this policy; it does notassure that customers will never, under any circumstance, need to pick up the phone.

§ If anything, the fact that TWC touts the ability to seamlessly escalate virtual agent and mobile app conversations to the live telephony arena suggests that customers likely will need to pick up the phone in some cases.

* Time Warner Cable’s commitment to a 24-hour support window (in the event of an outage) is admirable for its specificity. What it lacks, however, is a firm statement on what will happen in the interim. Given the extent to which livelihoods rely on constant Internet connectivity, an hour of disconnect – let alone 24 of them – is not acceptable.

o Outages happen. It is foolish to suggest otherwise. It is not, however, foolish to expect a utilities business to minimize the possibility of outages. Moreover, it is not foolish to expect a utilities business to establish a backup plan in the event an outage does occur.

§ While it is nice to see Time Warner’s commitment to responding to service outages, it would be nicer to see Time Warner’s commitment to pre-empting outages and minimizing the effects of the ones that do occur.

* Time Warner Cable’s emphasis on response time certainly provides value to customers. Does it also send the wrong message to agents?

o Within a customer engagement context, efficiency is valuable as a means to an end (a more satisfying customer experience). It is not the end itself.

§ If the agent fails to warmly, accurately and productively solve the customer’s issue, the upset customer will not take solace in the fact that the call may have been "efficient."

§ Efficiency works in tandem with other experiential factors; it does it not itself render a call successful.

o By positioning efficiency as its core promise, Time Warner leadership is potentially providing agents with inflated view of its importance.

§ TWC is potentially creating a culture of efficiency – rather than a culture of customer centricity.

§ Conditioned to believe efficiency is paramount, agents may gloss over other, often more relevant factors like warmth and personalization. They, in the name of keeping call times low (so that they can answer other calls in accordance with the company’s stated response time), may also avoid the deeper inquiries and complex resolutions warranted by some interactions.

o Perhaps Time Warner is concurrently conditioning agents on the importance of customer centricity – and that efficiency only matters when it contributes positively to the customer’s experience.

§ Its advertising, however, clearly positions efficiency as a paramount goal.

§ To assure that the emphasis on efficiency is part of a broader commitment to satisfaction, TWC should also promise the delivery of elements like high-value resolutions, resolutions on the first contact and agents who treat you like an individual.

Image Credit: Time Warner Cable


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