Customer Disservice 101: Learn from Time Warner Cable
I’d previously written about Time Warner Cable in a prior post (see Time Warner Cable - A Rant on Why I Don’t Like Monopolies) . In that, I talked about how customer lifetime value doesn’t matter to a monopoly like Time Warner in NYC because in a monopoly, the customer is stuck with you for a lifetime.
Today, I’ll describe (in much less detail) how the matter ended. Spoiler alert: Time Warner’s performance got worse (if that is possible).
With my last bill not reflecting the credits it should have received, I called Time Warner over lunch to just inform them of my prior conversations and to get the credit I’d previously been told I’d get.
The summary of my conversation is that Time Warner informed me I wouldn’t get the credits I’d originally been told I’d receive because of Time Warner policy and that the prior customer service representative misspoke. While I explained that TWC’s policies nor representative misstatements are not my problem, it was to no avail.
The beauty of this situation still remains that I have no choice but to stick with Time Warner Cable. So once again, monopolies are great (for the company). It also makes me look forward to the day when I can use the internet as my television.
More generally, this is worth noting for businesses that can lose customers (unlike TWC). Organic growth is often best enhanced by maintaining existing customers and cross-selling them on new services and products instead of just aiming to acquire new customers.
Tags: customer disservice, customer lifetime value, customer service, organic growth, time warner cable
