Cutting the Cord.....Cancelling Cable!
Dear Readers:
Sadly, I use Comcast Cable.
Their charges (indecipherable and impossible to reconcile) increase constantly --I'm paying almost twice what I was paying two years ago -- Their service (especially for internet and telephone) is growing increasingly unreliable, with long and frequent "service outages," as our access to cable TV programs and channel availability seems to be shrinking.
They (Comcast) have a constructive monopoly in my neighborhood, with lots of "automatic business" bu virtue of their protected territory regardless of their miserable service. The money they spend on marketing campaigns about their Xfinity Product and New Customer Service Guarantees (all unenforceable window-dressing -- just constructive fiction to palliate the seething masses of users whom they victimize with impunity), would be far better invested in service improvements and true, good-faith customer retention.
Monopolies are, in essence, licenses to steal, granted by government. The cable contingent is no exception to this time-honored tradition of institutionalized indifference. It's probably difficult for them to constrain themselves from the temptation posed by the combination of limitless power, no competition, toothless regulations, and the irrelevance of customer satisfaction.
An increasing number of people are "cutting the cable cord."
Rationalize as they might, the cable companies are not suffering these defections due to
a "bad economy" -- they are simply far too expensive, far too abusive, and being beaten up by less-expensive, aggressively-marketed alternative technologies (i.e., Netflix, etc.).
The "bad economy" explanation is the kind of pap that worried, overfed senior management feeds their respective boards of directors when they either cannot or will not face the truth -- they are distrusted, disliked, offer poor service, overcharge, and are an endless source of problems for their subscribers, some of whom may actually start reading books again.
When you are the "only game in town" it is easy to offer the least and charge the most. But don't forget -- your clients are not with you voluntarily, and they will eventually leave you at the first scent of an alternative, or when your pricing gets so high that you start to become a "luxury" where you had become culturally entrenched as a necessity.
An article, courtesy of Yahoo News! follows for your reading pleasure. It will make you chuckle.
I hope that this is merely the beginning of a trend.
As for Comcast Cable... F.U.! ('fess up!).
TODAY - November 05, 2010
Cable subscribers are cutting the cord
The number of customers ditching their subscriptions has more than doubled at some providers. 'Simply not affordable'
Related links
Douglas Castle [ http://www.DouglasCastleBlogosphere.com ]
Tags, Labels and Terms: Monopolies, customer service, customer abuse, pricing tolerances, customer retention, when necessities become luxuries, tipping points, alternatives spur action, TNNWC, Articles by Douglas Castle, public utilities, GICBC, entrepreneurship, innovation, competition, free enterprise, public relations, douglascastleblogosphere, Customer Experience Practice
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