Cablefax The Magazine - July 2011 - 22

CUSTOMER CARE AWARD
(left to right) Suzanne Foy, Director, Customer
Care Standards, Billing and Payment Processes,
Cox Communications; Andy Haines, VP, Enterprise
Customer Care, Time Warner Cable; and
Tapan Dandnaik, SVP, Customer Service & Financial
Operations, Mediacom Communications.
C5 Committee members
The Cable Center
Imagine executives from leading companies in any other industry
regularly meeting to share ideas and experience to lift all
boats in the realm of customer service. Not easy to do, is it?
That's the beauty of the cable industry, and the reason
we're bestowing our Customer Care Award on the Cable
Center, which for fi ve years has stewarded the Cable Center
Customer Care Committee (C5).
Simply put, " I don't know if you would fi nd a C5 in many
other industries, " says Gibbs Jones, SVP, customer experience,
at C5 member Suddenlink.
" The C5 relationship we have built is unique to any other
industry in the world, " says Michael DeCandido, C5 co-chair
and SVP, call center operations, at Comcast Cable. " We
all have different subject matter
expertise across our careers that
allow us to leverage each other for
advisement. "
The C5 mandate dovetails perfectly
with Cable Center's nonprofi t
educational mission of bringing
together industry players to better
serve customers. " Given common
challenges and the increasingly
competitive environment, not only
from DBS and telcos but the likes
of Google and Netfl ix, it only makes
sense to share best practices, " says
Jana Henthorn, Cable Center SVP,
academic and industry outreach.
22
cablefaxmag.com
■ C5 consists of 25 invited members representing
the top 14 MSOs in North America
and Europe, plus associate members
representing leading industry associations.
■ Members meet monthly via Webinars and
twice annually for in-person meetings.
■ In June, Amdocs, a developer/provider of
customer experience systems, was named
the exclusive presenting sponsor of C5.
July 2011
In addition to its regular meetings, C5 supports an immediate
online Q&A, with the results stored in a password
protected sharing forum. " I've worked in other
industries and this is the first time I've been able to benefit
from the best practices of my industry colleagues in
such a real-time fashion, " says Tina Waters, SVP, human
performance-NCO, at Comcast.
Sometimes the group has leveraged information on
current or recent past trends- such as its recent probe
into social media strategies and research from companies
such as J.D. Power. And sometimes C5 has been
way ahead of the curve.
" Two years ago the C5 presentFAST
FACTS
ed leading edge research regarding
Customer Effort as a key factor in
assessing customer experience, "
says Andy Haines, C5 co-chair
and VP, enterprise customer care,
at Time Warner Cable. " Customer
effort measures how easy it is for
the customer reach a resolution
with the company. That was a
year before that research appeared
in the Harvard Business Review
and is only now being leveraged
across other industries. " Sounds
like smart thinking to us. ■
-Cathy Applefeld Olson
CableFAX: The Magazine
http://www.cablefaxmag.com
Cablefax The Magazine - July 2011

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