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Cable and Satellite Customer Satisfaction Ratings

May 19, 2008

chart 5 a.m. is awfully early, but my ears perked up during National Public Radio’s newscast this morning. The American Customer Satisfaction Index has come out with its latest customer satisfaction survey, and it’s a bit of good news/bad news for the cable and satellite television companies.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) goes to 100 and is based on the degree to which the customer is satisfied with his or her service. This year’s study finds that satellite providers such as DirecTV and DISH Network are well ahead of their cable competitors. Although the satisfaction index for the cable industry as a whole rose to 64, this was mainly due to smaller cable operators, since Comcast and Charter suffered significant declines. Here are the specific breakouts for the operators:

DirecTV: Up 2% to 68
DISH Network: Down 3% to 65
Cox: Unchanged at 63
Time Warner Cable: Up 1.7% to 59
Comcast: Down 4% to 54
Charter: Down 2% to 54

We decided to take a look at our own satisfaction numbers from a couple of our studies to see if they were reflecting the general increases in customer satisfaction among digital cable and satelllite television customers. Indeed, the numbers did increase between 2004 and 2007. These companies better continue to watch customer service and customer satisfaction closely, however. Companies like AT&T and Verizon are licking their chops at the prospects of huge numbers of dissatisfied customers looking for an alternative television provider. Comcast and Charter in particular could be threatened if U-verse and FiOS TV services become more prevalent in their particular markets.