Cablefax The Magazine - July 2017 - 6

2017 TOP OPS AWARDS
MSO OF YEAR
Comcast Cable
After a spate of negative press, Comcast made a splashy vow in
2015 to take the customer experience to a new level. It kicked off
the initiative at the Cable Show in Chicago, talking about the pledge
and showing off a revamped Xfi nity retail store with Brian Roberts,
Neil Smit and plenty of media in attendance. Two years later, signs
point to progress.
Comcast closed 2016 with a 97% on-time arrival rate for technicians.
Customer call volume is down 14% year-over-year, while
the success rate of solving an issue on the fi rst call is up 7%. An
updated My Account app aimed at giving customers control to fi x
issues or schedule appointments counts nearly nine million users.
More than 184 new or renovated Xfi nity stores opened in 2016, with
more coming in this year. Comcast also upped the number of WiFi
hotspots available nationwide to 17 million.
" We're making pretty good progress, " says Comcast Cable CEO Dave
Watson. " There are 22 million less agent handled calls in a one-year
period. It just provides perspective that there's an opportunity here.
The great thing is we're going to change the way we do business in
a way that's benefi cial to the customer. " The newly installed CEO is
quick to note there's more work to be done, with customer experience
evp Charlie Herrin adding that he didn't think anyone could push the
issue more than Watson's predecessor Smit, but " Dave is proving to
be equally adept at that. From an organization standpoint, everyone's
psyched because the mission continues. "
The impact on customer experience permeates everything at the
MSO. " You'd be hard pressed to fi nd any meeting where customer
experience isn't discussed, " says Herrin. " I don't think that was
certainly the case at the end of 2014. In many ways, I don't think
the culture has changed now, but the tools that we have now and
the focus has changed. Culturally, we always wanted to be competitive
and always wanted to take care of our customers, but we didn't
always put
in the time
to make sure we
questioned processes
twice and put the customer front and
center at every decision. "
One of those tools has been the Net Promoter System, which gives the
viewpoint of the customer (ie, not just internal metrics) and provides
for frontline employees what Herrin describes as an " immediate
megaphone " into the business. Comcast is in the fi nal stages of rolling
it out throughout the company. While many companies that use NPS
focus on the customer survey aspect and their Net Promoter scores,
Comcast is focusing equally, if not more, on the employee piece of
the system. That means building time into workfl ow for huddles to
discuss surveys and responses, with the leaders of these meetings
logging their issues at an elevated priority so they can be resolved.
Maybe it's a policy that needs to be changed or the right tool internally
isn't available. " That's the virtuous circle where the employee really
starts to feel like they are truly part of the solution, " Herrin explains.
Comcast also has polished its image with the introduction of technology
and services that make the experience better. In the fall, it
integrated Netfl ix into the X1 platform-with Watson saying that 30%
of customers are either porting over their existing Netfl ix account
or signing up through X1 as a new customer. Comcast is a heavy
believer in its voice remote, completing a billion voice commands
a quarter right now. It's testing its IPTV service " Instant TV " that
doesn't require a set-top and is expected to launch footprint-wide by
year-end. This year, it launched Tech ETA to give customers a better
window into when a technician will arrive. May brought the addition of
xFi, a service to better manage the home WiFi network.
Oh, and then there's Comcast's entry into wireless with Xfi nity Mobile,
which again is being used more as an experience enhancer vs a separate,
new product line. Comcast's mobile app lets customers
seamlessly go back and forth between an unlimited and
pay-by-the-gig plan, plus a household can mix and match
individual users. " We believe we'll defi ne success very differently
than existing wireless providers. Our objective is to
give good customers good value in our mobile service with
one of the keys to success churn reduction, " Watson says.
With new services continuing to launch and a new leader
in place, Comcast is far from fi nished with its customer
experience marathon. " If I had any area that I am personally
focused and energized around, it's picking up the pace on
the experience improvements, " Watson says. " Delivering
great products helps in that regard... but that's not enough.
It's how we deliver service day in and day out. "
- Amy Maclean
6
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July 2017
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Cablefax The Magazine - July 2017

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