Consumers Hate Comcast and Time Warner

Bloomberg reports: “Merger partners Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. are two of America’s least favorite cable companies, according to a new survey from Consumer Reports. The cable giants showed up near the bottom of the magazine’s rankings in a survey of 81,848 users of television, Internet and phone plans, the magazine reported Tuesday. Subscribers gave the companies low marks for customer support and for value. ‘Everything else in consumer technology is getting more affordable every year — everything except communications services,’ said Glenn Derene, Consumer Reports’ electronics editor and lead author of the story.”

The two companies are attempting — pending the approval of state and federal regulators — to merge. And for what it’s worth, Comcast is taking the complaints pretty seriously:

Comcast said it has focused on improving customer satisfaction by proactively responding to complaints in social media, offering users online account management and boosting Internet speeds 12 times in recent years.

“We are making progress,” said Tom Karinshak, Comcast’s senior vice president of customer experience. “We aren’t happy with the Consumer Reports results and we know we have more work to do.”