Ops Try Various Remedies

Monica Hogan -- Multichannel News, 3/19/2001

Cable operators are looking at a number of ways to help curb digital churn.

Some say qualifying new customers at the time of sale or upgrade can help keep customer expectations in check.

"We're doing a better job of selling the right package to the right people," AT&T Broadband executive director of video marketing Steve Apodaca said. "If you oversell this, they'll call up to downgrade or disconnect."

So-called save programs at MSO call centers can also help reduce churn. AT&T has "save desks" in place in all its major markets, where customer-service agents ask customers why they want to drop digital service or whether they're aware of all the available features. The save desks are able to keep about 25 percent of the customers who call in, Apodaca added.

When price is an issue, Cox Communications Inc. offers what vice president of video product management Lynne Elander called a "gateway level" of digital-cable service, which keeps the digital box and some of the more basic digital features in front of the customer.

If sticker shock is a bigger issue than a customer's actual ability to pay, automated payment plans can also cut down on churn, some operators have found.

Cox is also analyzing how to target customers with multiple-outlet offers for digital cable. "We see much lower churn in multi-outlet homes than in single-outlet homes," Elander said.

But Cox's main thrust is to get more of everything in front of the customer through bundled product offers. "Customers that have more than one product category from us churn less than those that have just digital [cable] from us," Elander said.