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Cable and high tech: low satisfaction

The 2012 ratings are in from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), and things are looking grim for much of the tech industry - particularly cable and social media. Facebook, Twitter and other social media are indeed cutting edge, innovative industries, but millions of angry users take some of the gloss off. Poor cable service is legendary, but considering that social media users pay nothing directly, one can only conclude that the companies are strenuously irritating their subscribers.

Companies at the top of the 100-point scale tend to be food and beverage producers, who admittedly don't sell things that ordinarily need customer service, and luxury goods. Then we have cable and tech. Business Insider posted "The 15 Worst Companies For Customer Service," and we list the worst tech and cable companies for you, from bad to worse, with some Business Insider comments:

  • Twitter.  64. "Increasing worry about the sharing and use of personal data, the sheer omnipresence of these sites, and increased advertising might be behind the extremely low scores."
  • Cox Communications. 63. "Customers are irked by sales tactics which acquire new customers with low rates, then boost them much higher later."
  • LinkedIn.  63. Slightly ahead of low-man Facebook. According to ACSI, "Monetizing schemes appear to be at the core of user dissatisfaction..."
  • Time Warner Cable.  63. Improved slightly because they're losing TV customers, "which means a smaller pool of more loyal subscribers." But for most customers, there's no choice in TV access.
  • Facebook. 61. Eight points down. Lowest-rated social media Said ACSI, "Facebook's drop coincides with the release of its Timeline profile, a significant change to the look and organization of its pages."
  • Comcast. 61. "Comcast had lost 400,000 subscription television subscribers as of August. That could be due to alternatives... or dissatisfaction."
  • Charter Communications. 59. The lowest-rated TV company... and that's saying a lot.

Other communications companies, which provided the same services but did it better, were Verizon and AT&T; both had a 70. Among high-tech companies, Yahoo had a 78, and Google topped the list at 82. Apple's hardware - as opposed to its iPhone which is serviced by telecoms - topped out at 86.

The 15 Worst Companies for Customer service (Business Insider, Jan. 8, 2013)

American Customer Satisfaction Index (2012 ratings)