Scoring the Customer Journey

Waiting too long to speak to customer service when you have an issue, being incorrectly billed and receiving irrelevant content recommendations are things many consumers need to deal with regularly from their TV service provider. However, 85% of consumers now want a service provider that demonstrates they understand their needs and provide a positive experience at every stage of engagement with them. Customer experience is a critical factor in building and growing subscriber relationships, so how are operators stacking up in the eyes of their customers?

Joining a service

Signing up to a new service is the part of the journey where customers seem to be most happy, with 68% of Traditional TV and 77% of OTT customer finding this experience positive. Acquiring new subscribers is a major challenge for operators, so it’s no surprise that they are putting a lot of effort in to ensure sign-up is simple and smooth.

Receiving Marketing Communications and Content Recommendations

Unfortunately, one in five satellite, cable or IPTV customers are unhappy with the marketing communications they receive. Traditional operators like these could take a more personalised approach by using data wisely, ensuring the right offers, promotions and communications are sent to the correct customers at all times.

OTT providers are ahead of the game with content recommendations, with almost three quarters of customers feeling positive about the recommendations they receive for their favourite movies, shows and sporting content.

Contacting Customer Service and Billing Issues

Calling an operator for help with a technical issue is a common activity many carry out, however one in four traditional TV customers found contacting customer service was a negative experience. Operators must be accessible and understanding as its important to deal with customer’s problems as quickly and easily as possible.

Who can believe customers are still receiving an inaccurate bill or having payment taken incorrectly? It is rarely going to be something a TV customer is happy about, so it’s no surprise that payment problems were the top issue that is going to infuriate customers the most. Operators beware!

Receiving Loyalty Discounts and Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Receiving an unexpected loyalty discount, gift or reward should never be a bad thing, but almost one in 5 traditional TV customers found this to be a negative experience. Getting something for free sounds like a win-win situation, but operators must ensure they send the right discounts and rewards to the right customers, based on their likes and behaviours.

Being asked opinions with satisfaction surveys benefit both the consumer and operator, with over half of customers feeling positive about being asked to complete one, and TV service providers gaining valuable insight on how to improve their service, what’s working and what’s not.

Upgrading/Downgrading Package, Cancelling a Service and Win Back Offers

One in 5 traditional TV customers found upgrading or downgrading their package a negative experience. It’s important for customers to be able to self-serve and change packages whenever they want. Having a clear UI and using pop-ups with recommendations suited to them could help grow ARPU and even if a customer is more suited on a lower package, it’s better to downgrade them instead of losing them completely.

Also, a quarter of traditional TV customers felt that cancelling a TV service via mail, email, SMS or social was difficult. Churn is inevitable, but if operators make this process easy, customers are more likely to come back.

With churn being such a big challenge, winning back lost customers is a big focus but often these offers are very general and out of touch with what consumers want. OTT providers seem to be ahead of the game though, with almost half of their customers finding re-join offers positive.

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