UPDATE: This article has been updated with a statement from Mediacom.
Cable companies are no strangers to customer service complaints, but one in particular stands apart from its peers for the anger and frustration it provokes from its subscribers.
A new survey of more than 12,700 telecom customers found that New York-based cable, internet, and phone company Mediacom receives the lowest consumer satisfaction scores of any other company in its sector, according to a report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). In fact, in ACSI’s report, which was released on Wednesday, Mediacom’s subscription TV services received a lower customer satisfaction score—just 54 points out of a possible 100—than any of the more than 300 companies tracked by ACSI across 43 industries.
ACSI’s industry scores for subscription TV providers are based on customers’ opinions on factors such as cable picture quality, the breadth of premium channels the company makes available, as well as experiences with the companies’ call centers.
Time Warner Cable (TWC) and Cox Communications rank just above Mediacom, with both companies scoring 59 points out of 100—a rating that actually represents a surge for TWC, which tied with Mediacom last year for last place with just 51 points.
Meanwhile, Verizon Communications’ (VZ) Fios service topped the list of subscription TV providers, with a customer satisfaction score of 70. Verizon Fios also topped ASCI’s rankings of telecoms’ customer satisfaction scores for its internet service, scoring 73 points. Mediacom finished just ahead of Frontier Communications (FTR) at the bottom of that list, with scores of 57 and 56 points, respectively.
In response to Coins2Day‘s request for comment, Mediacom Senior Vice President of Government and Public Relations Thomas Larsen wrote in an email he thinks Mediacom is “at a distinct disadvantage” as compared to its larger rivals in terms of the sample size of respondents in ACSI’s survey. Larsen also said Mediacom has recently increased its investments in improving its customers’ experiences with the company. “We have introduced an award winning mobile care app and e-commerce sites for our customers to use,” Larsen wrote in the email. “Mediacom was one of the first companies to introduce night and weekend appointments and 30-minute appointment windows, strategies that are now being copied by much larger providers. We recently announced a $1 billion capital investment plan over the next 3-years that will allow us to deploy 1-Gig services across our footprint.”
ACSI notes in its report that pending mergers could affect customer service ratings at cable and internet providers, as Charter Communications (CHTR)—which scored a 60 for its subscription TV service and 63 for its internet service—recently completed its purchase of TWC and Bright House Networks. Both in terms of cable and internet service, Bright House ranked higher than Charter in ACSI’s study. ACSI Managing Director David VanAmburg said in a statement that Charter’s “challenge will be to keep satisfaction levels from falling in the wake of a merger.”
Overall, the telecommunications sector fared slightly better in this year’s ACSI survey compared to last year’s results, with the customer satisfaction score for the sector on the whole increasing 1.9% to 70.1 points out of 100. The lowest-scoring industry within the telecoms sector—in which ACSI includes providers of cable, internet, and phone services, along with cell phone manufacturers—was internet service providers, which averaged a customer satisfaction score of just 64.
