Satisfaction With Cable Service Lowest In Years

Cable TV, Internet and phone service providers are always near the bottom in customer satisfaction surveys, and it looks like this year they've done even worse than the already low bar that's been set.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index out yesterday (June 2nd) found the results for those industries fell to a seven-year low, with TV and Internet companies tied for last place out of 43 industries.

Looking at individual companies in the study, which is based on more than 14,000 consumer surveys, Time Warner cable tied Mediacom Communications for the lowest score among the more than 300 companies evaluated.

Claes Fornell

While customer service complaints have been common in these industries for a while, people's unhappiness about it has gotten worse as they continue to see the rising prices.

The difference now is that they may finally able to drop cable TV, at least, since there are options like Hulu and Netflix. Claes Fornell, the chairman and founder of the Index, said, "There was a time when pay TV could get away with discontented users without being penalized by revenue losses from defecting customers. But those days are over.