Consumer Survey Reveals the Customer Care Experiences That Most Impact the Relationship Between Cable Operator and Subscri

CSG Systems Teams with Frost & Sullivan to Uncover Key Customer Service Experiences that Drive Positive and Negative Consumer Response

ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- CSG Systems International, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGS), a leading provider of customer interaction management and billing solutions, today announced the results of its latest consumer survey, designed to poll end consumers on the service experiences that most impact the relationship between cable operators and their customers.

CSG partnered with industry analyst firm Frost & Sullivan to complete the research, which surveyed 260 consumers nationwide between the ages of 24 and 49 in April, 2010. Survey results indicate delivering high-quality customer communications along with a positive customer care experience across all customer touch points can greatly improve the ability to retain and grow a customer relationship. However, the survey also illustrated that the threshold for poor customer service experiences is low, in many cases prompting a customer to label a cable operator as a poor customer service provider after only one negative experience.

“With the variety of communications channels at their disposal, cable operators are in a unique position to reach customers according to their preference,” said Dan Colquhoun, vice president of customer research, Frost & Sullivan. “As we see from survey results, leveraging those channels appropriately can foster interactions with consumers that net out in recommendations of the service to friends, increased buying, and reducing customer churn.”

Key Areas of Study:

• Identifying the positive and negative customer service experiences that drive consumers to take actions from changing service providers, to recommending a service to a friend.
• Learning how customers receive communications from their cable operator today and which channels they are most likely to use when buying new products and services.
• Identifying customer willingness to share personal preference information and receive targeted advertising.

Summary of Key Findings:

Customer Service Tipping Points

• Respondents stated that it takes only two occurrences of bad customer service before they become likely to change their opinion of the service provider to one that has poor customer service. Respondents aged 24 to 29 are more likely to alter their opinion of a service provider with just one occurrence of bad customer service.
  • Top three bad customer service incidents chosen by respondents: 68% on hold for an extended period; 66% rude/impolite service representatives; 63% told issue is resolved when it isn’t. (Respondents could choose more than one option).
• A majority of respondents will switch to another service provider when bad customer service occurs more than 50% of the time, regardless of age and gender.
• Friendly staff consistently ranked highest (77%) as a meter of good experience with a service provider, followed by fast, polite and courteous service.
• More than 10% of respondents said they would write about a good customer service interaction on a social media site. This statistic nearly doubled for a bad customer service experience (i.e., a service disruption).
• Speed of response (37%), faster service changes (36%) and fast resolution of issues (35%), most influence the decision to use online customer care channels.
• One third of respondents who interact with their cable operator frequently will change their opinion of the service provider to one that has poor customer service with just one occurrence, however, these customers are also most open to communicating across a wider variety of channels, and are more likely to use electronic channels to communicate and buy new services.

A Variety of Channels Drive Customers to Learn About and Buy New Products and Services

• Mail (65%) and email (46%) are the most preferred ways to learn about new product and service offerings, while telephone (41%), online website (37%) and mail (37%) are the most preferred ways to buy new product and service offerings.
• 21% of customers responded that they would very likely take advantage of coupons and promotional offers presented to them through the set-top box, while 16% would very likely respond to an offer on a social media site.
• SMS text messaging is an emerging method that customers prefer to learn (4%) and buy (3%) new services with 9% of respondents aged 24 to 29 choosing SMS. This age group prefers email as its communications and buying channel, with 58% of respondents choosing this as their preferred method.
• Email is also the most effective communication channel (32%) for the respondents to take action on coupons and promotional offers, followed by chatting with a service representative online.

Convincing Customers to Opt-in for Targeted Advertising

• When offered a discount on service for providing their service preferences to advertisers, slightly under two out of five respondents would allow their service providers to provide this information, but only at the highest discount offered of 10 to 15%.
• Respondents who interact with their service providers frequently are more willing to share their service preferences for a lesser discount - 21% would accept a 2-3% discount on services in exchange for personal information.
• Younger and male respondents are more willing to share their service preferences.

“Customers have reported that the quality of care during just one interaction can make or break their opinion of their cable operator, so it’s important to not only deliver the right customer interactions, but also to deliver those interactions via the channel the consumer prefers,” said Rob Kunzler, vice president of marketing, CSG Systems. “The message is clear in the data; delivering a solid, informed, and consistent service experience – whether via the set-top box, email, the call center or other channels, will result in an end customer maintaining or expanding their service set.”

Editor’s Note: CSG will provide unique survey data points, executive comment and accompanying graphics for this story from the company’s booth #1111 at the NCTA Cable Show, May 11-13 in Los Angeles, Calif. To schedule a briefing, please contact: kmartin@emergepr.com or visit CSG during the show.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com.

About CSG Systems

Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, CSG Systems International, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGS) is a customer interaction management company that provides software- and services-based solutions that help clients engage and transact with their customers. With a 25-year heritage in providing customer management and billing solutions to North American cable and direct broadcast satellite companies, CSG has broadened its customer interaction management capabilities to proudly serve this client base as well as new, highly competitive industries including financial services, healthcare, utilities and more. Today, CSG's solutions reach more than half of all U.S. households each month and manage over $36 billion in transactions annually on its clients' behalf. For more information, visit our website at http://www.csgsystems.com.

CONTACT:

CSG Systems
Elise Brassell, 303-471-5991
Media Relations
elise_brassell@csgsystems.com
or
Liz Bauer, 303-804-4065
Investor Relations
liz_bauer@csgsystems.com

KEYWORDS:   United States  North America  California  Colorado

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS:   Technology  Data Management  Internet  Networks  Software  Audio/Video  Mobile/Wireless

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