HOW CUSTOMER SERVICE KEEPS BRIGHT HOUSE TAMPA CUSTOMERS HAPPY

Bright House Tampa Bay knows advanced services can be confusing, so its reps contact new customers just to help.

It's not an accident that J.D. Power and Associates last month named Bright House Networks tops in phone customer satisfaction in the Southeast. Since the accolade was a nod to the company's Florida flagship in Tampa Bay, we asked Tampa's VP of customer care Bill Futch how he does it. His formula emphasizes making life as simple as possible for customers, including weekend installs and letting subs pay their cable bill using the TV remote. But since home media is no longer simple, Tampa has a new squad that visits subs with advanced services, just to make certain they're comfortable with the technology. And there's no sales pitch: "We're getting out there...just to make sure their experience with us was positive," he says.

Can customers turn to you for help with wireless home networks and HD home theaters?

Bill Futch: Yes. This year we kicked off an initiative on that and created a position called the customer relationship representative. This is the new world that we as cable operators live in. It's not just about the pipe and the content any longer.

SUB-MISSION: Bright House Tampa Bay VP of customer care Bill Futch sends customer reps to homes not to upsell, but to make sure subs know how to use products they've already got.

What do your customer relationship representatives do?

Futch: They're similar, in terms of organization and training, to a direct sales representative. They're foot soldiers, they're on the street. But their focus is not to sell to new customers or even upsell. It's to reach out to existing customers who may be newly installed, who may have had a recent service call, who may have received a DVR or may have just upgraded to a triple play. We knock on these folks' doors and ensure they understand how to use our products and services.

What do the CRRs learn once they're inside the home?

Futch: Oftentimes folks, as much as they enjoy their DVR, may not understand totally how to program all of their favorite shows, or how to really take advantage of the remote. They may be using three remotes when they could just be using a single remote. CRRs are a great way to enhance the customer experience outside of a sales environment and outside of a traditional inbound customer care environment. We're trying to get into the customers' homes not to sell them anything but just to make sure their experience with us was positive.

How do the CRRs pick their spots?

Futch: We're targeting our customer groups as effectively as we can while we grow this employee pool. Our Hillsborough region may be targeting more double-play customers than people who've just ordered a DVR. In Manatee County they may have decided to go after people who've had a service call recently that ended up being resolved by customer education.

Your subs can pay their cable bill on TV?

Futch: Yes. You can view your bill on interactive television and pay your bill through your television.Customers can tune to channel 999, which we call My Account On Demand. They can view their current bill, their latest charges, recent purchases and they can also make a payment. They can make a minimum payment or pay the entire bill.

What else are you planning for interactivity?

Futch: We're already rolling out some other interactive capabilities from purchasing certain channels and tiers of service, such as our HD pack, without having to call someone or go on the Web. Right now we're doing this for some of our specialty packs--our HD pack, our sports pack, our movie pack--and we are looking to deploy that more broadly.

We've also deployed interactive ads and polling. Particularly through the great partnership we have with Bay News 9, our local news outlet. They can offer polls in connection with political shows or their daily news broadcasts. Viewers can vote in polls by using the remote. We can show the results later in the newscast. Our technology partner on this is Navic. It's a companywide initiative.

Your customer-care philosophy stresses simplicity.

Futch: Yes. We're grassroots, we're local and we believe we can be a simpler and easier experience for our customers. It boils down to how easy and simple can we make interacting with our customers and customers interacting with us. Whether that's providing 24/7 customer service for any issue--not just a repair issue or a sales call but if they want help at 2 a.m. walking through a bill--we're here.

What else have you done to make life easier for customers?

Futch: We do installations and service calls on Saturdays and Sundays. You won't find many of our competitors doing that. We've looked at how we can make our appointment windows and time frames most convenient. We've retired four- and eight-hour service calls and now use two- and three-hour appointment windows.

And billing?

Futch: Our billing is a testament to how simple and easy we make our business. Our bill is typically one page. Some of our competitors' bills are anywhere from 10 to 12 pages, with eight to 10 contact numbers for help.

So you just have one number?

Futch: If you're a digital phone customer, you just pick up the phone and dial 611--you'll get through to someone. We've also deployed speech recognition on our IVR [interactive voice response] so customers can call us and get through with as few prompts and utterances as possible. We've done a lot of work this year enhancing our Web presence. We overhauled it to make that experience as positive as possible.

Are more customer inquiries now handled online versus over the phone?

Futch: Absolutely. We've seen a significant increase, even just from a bill-payment perspective. More than 30% of our payments are now being made through a self-service channel. That's not just by using the Web. Customers can pay through the IVR, interactive television and online.

Is your goal to move more customers to self-service channels?

Futch: We don't want to move anything. What we want to do is create as many channels for our customers to interact with us as possible. We want them to choose which one they'd like and make each as positive an experience as possible. We're not in a situation where we have to look to cut costs under every stone. We're trying to make our customers' lives easy. So we're not investing in these channels and forcing our customers to do something they don't want to do.