Unpopular telco turns to rewards scheme
US telco Charter Communications is trying to shake off its poor customer image with a new national rewards scheme.
Charter, whose customer service ranked at the bottom of the industry in a recent independent survey, has launched the Live It with Charter programme. The scheme offers subscribers points based on how much money they pay Charter for its video, internet and phone services.
Subscribers can redeem their points for prizes ranging from high-definition televisions to tickets for Food Network shows to credit for Charter services.??The St. Louis-based cable company said customers liked the programme when it was tested in the East Coast last year and a version rolled out in Reno, Nev., in 2006. Customer retention increased and they spent more per month.
No satisfaction?Charter will be hoping the new initiative improves its public image. In May it came equal bottom with Comcast Corp in the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index. And in January, Charter mistakenly deleted the contents of 14,000 customer e-mail accounts.
But Charter said the programme is more about making itself stand out from competitors in a competitive marketplace.
The company says it is working on improving customer service. It hqas adopted a new policy of calling or e-mailing new customers within 24 hours after services are installed to ask if they have encountered any problems.