Consumers still hate pay-TV providers (and providers know it)

When people feel unhappy, they speak out. And that's what 81,848 customers of home telecommunications services did in the 2014 telecom survey conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center. The annual telecom survey ranks TV, broadband and telecom bundled services from 14 major providers.

Consumers gave very low scores to some of the biggest cable and TV companies when it comes to value, reliability, channel selection, picture, and customer support.

"These results aren't surprising to a lot of people. It's hard to find people that truly love their cable company," says Glenn Derene, electronics editor at Consumer Reports. "The overall ratings are very low compared to when we do surveys on other businesses such as supermarkets. Consumers don't think they are getting enough for their money or they are paying for too much for what they use."

Local Pay-TV Providers Ranked Higher Than National Brands

While many consumers were indeed unhappy with their TV provider, not all of them were dissatisfied.

In fact, when it comes to TV service, some of the smaller regional companies ranked the highest with a reader score of 74 out of a possible 100 points. Those companies were Armstrong Cable and WOW (WideOpenWest). Verizon FiOS, which delivers TV services through fiber, earned a 73.

But some of the biggest companies ranked the lowest. For instance, Comcast scored a 59; Time Warner Cable a 58, and Mediacom was at the bottom with 54. The scores were based on responses about value, reliability, channel selection, picture, and customer service.

[Are you unhappy with your TV provider? Click to get quotes and switch to a new provider now.]

What Customers Are Upset About

Derene says that the Consumer Reports survey doesn't ask the "why" when it comes to consumers' feelings. So, the survey asked people to reveal their telecom stories and feelings on Consumer Reports' Facebook page.

"The overwhelming response was negative," says Derene. "Many wanted to drop their companies, and some already had. We heard a lot about being overcharged."

Here are some of the Facebook comments:

• "Customer service was so bad it made me really angry."
• "Cable television is a big waste of time and money."
• "One of the best things my wife and I have done to enrich our marriage was to cancel cable."

Other pay-TV consumers shared similar sentiments.

Cable is too Expensive: Kelli Kennon-Lane, 28, of Marion, Iowa, decided a few years ago to ditch the family's on-and-off satellite TV subscription for financial and customer service reasons.

"The final straw was us taking a long, hard look at our finances and trimming the fat. Frankly that $70 a month could buy a cart of groceries for our family of two," she says. "I think customer service is a thing of the past. With the automation of service provided to customers, it also really makes one feel like less of a priority when seeing help from a cable or satellite company."

[Do you want to switch TV providers and lower your TV bill? Click to get quotes from providers now.]

Lack of Providers to Choose From: For Ross Bielema, 54, living in rural New London, Wisconsin, there are no cable television or high-speed Internet options.

"So we have DirecTV for both television and Internet. We have two satellite dishes on our roof," he says.

The big downside limited options is that the weather affects their satellite service. A bad storm can leave the family without TV and Internet for hours, and even a relatively mild rain can shut it down for a few minutes or longer.

"So, it's a love-hate relationship with satellite TV service. We love the selection of programs and the ability of the remote to find future shows, provide the case and crew names of a movie, list the TV shows and movies those starts were in, and set the DVR," he says.

His complaint besides weather problems is that he pays $160 for TV and Internet combined. What's more, "DirecTV has continued to increase prices," he says.

Too Many Channels: Jeff Kagan, a technology industry analyst living in Atlanta, Georgia, adds that the average customer watches the same 5-10 channels, but TV providers just keep throwing more and more channels at them even if they don't want them and raising the prices for things they don't want. Those are some big reasons why people are dissatisfied with the industry, Kagan says.

"The cable companies aren't paying attention to the customer that wants to save money, and those that can't afford a big cable bill every month."

[Do you want to switch TV providers and lower your TV bill? Click to get quotes from providers now.]

What Are Providers Doing to Keep Customers?

With all the Internet companies competing for their business, pay-TV companies are going to have to learn to connect to customers and know what the customer wants, says Kagan.

"They never had to care or innovate or make their customer happy, and they never had to worry about price because they never had competition. They haven't spent any time or energy on improving their customer relationships until recently," he says.

That's because TV providers know that their customers are cutting the cord - completely getting rid of satellite or cable TV - and just watching video by Internet. To help keep some of their customers happy, here are some steps pay-TV providers are taking:

Sports-Free Packages: According to the Consumer Reports survey, some TV providers are now offering "sports-free economy packages" that will not only cater to consumers' TV preferences, but also allow them to avoid the $2 or $3 per month sports surcharges.

"These companies are not completely going with an a la carte system, but they are sensitive to what people want and don't want," Derene says.

Mobile Viewing: "I see cable companies trying to keep up with insatiable consumer demand for videos on all their devices all the time," says Brian Dietz, vice president of communications and digital strategy for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NTA) based in Washington, D.C. Companies are allowing customers to stream their most popular shows on their Smartphones and tablets no matter where they go.

"You will begin seeing more innovative things from the cable industry. It is a business that has grown incredibly complicated. The Internet really changed the video market place," he says.

Improved Customer Service: Comcast, which scored very low on Consumer Reports' survey, is doing new things all the time to try to make customers happier, says Jenni Moyer, Comcast spokesperson. Moyer says that her company does take into consideration all of the surveys done on the telecommunications industry.

"We look at all of those surveys, and we listen to our customers in our own internal surveys. Those happen on an ongoing basis," she says. "We know that we are making progress when it comes to the number of times we have to go out to a customer's house for a second time. We call that the first-time resolution and repeat visits are down."

"We have really tried to focus on customer service," says Moyer, who adds that Comcast has launched a  customer service app. "We are trying to get it right for our customers the first time. We are trying to offer the best experience as possible. Sometimes that doesn't happen," she says. "Are we where we have to be? No. If there is an issue, we want to resolve that quickly to their satisfaction and make things easy and convenient."

[Are you unhappy with your TV provider? Click to get quotes and switch to a new provider now.]