Ask the average citizen about dealing with the only cable TV
provider in town, and he’ll probably shake his head with
frustration.
Ask the average citizen about dealing with the only cable TV provider in town, and he’ll probably shake his head with frustration.
Ask a certain city councilman about the same topic, and you’ll likely get an earful.
Charter Communications, which holds the franchise contract to provide cable TV to Gilroy residents (it also holds similar contracts in Hollister and Morgan Hill), has built a record of shoddy customer service, broken promises and missed deadlines.
It’s no wonder more and more homes are sprouting mini-satellite dishes on their southern facades. Few Gilroyans want to deal with Charter anymore.
The latest blow? Charter missed a Dec. 31 deadline – already extended from January 2002 – to complete a $30 million rebuild of Gilroy’s cable TV system. Not only has the cable company missed two deadlines on the upgrade, it also fought terms of the agreement that required it to place the cable television system’s equipment underground.
After Charter threatened to reduce the cable services it offered, the city allowed the cable television company to place some, but not all, of its equipment above ground. This decision was made despite the fact that Charter should have been well aware of the city’s undergrounding ordinance before it signed a franchise agreement with the city.
Charter Communications, which, judging by the speed at which general managers parade through it, must have a local executive suite featuring an ejection seat and revolving door, seems to have forgotten that a company’s most valuable and fragile asset is customer goodwill.
The cable TV service provider, which officials admit is experiencing reorganization and financial difficulties, may find its days are numbered as the cable TV provider in Gilroy, as well as South Valley as a whole, if it can’t get its act together.
Instead of consistently showing up a day late and a dollar short, it needs to meet its commitments, treat its customers with respect and gratitude and set a consistent corporate direction valuing excellent service delivered promptly.
The corporate culture change that’s required is, apparently, 180 degrees from where Charter’s values are now. We urge the company to make the necessary changes, or it will quickly find that either through customer stampede to satellite dishes or lost franchise contracts, it will no longer have customers to ignore.
