As everybody knows by now: Cablecom plans to re-brand itself to its owner UPC here in Switzerland before end of 2009. So this will be interesting how they then will operate and if the service will improve.
From my first impressions, through my latest experience and stories heard from friends or relatives, are quite optimistic, that there is a quality oriented service organisation emerging from good old and lousy Cablecom. I know that this is a contradictory statement to the one made earlier on this blog but I want to remain fair.
The stories and my own experience go all into the same direction: Service is improved by listening to the customer. So they really apologised for small mistakes and asked about how they could probably improve their service. In my case they called me after I have moved out of my flat into an area, where the Cablecom is not the provider for TV (and other services on base of a TV-Network), just to ask me what could have been wrong.
Now you can argue, that this is a standard procedure nowadays. But I really did not expect this behaviour from Cablecom! This shows one thing: They had a really bad image in public and that UPC has to do something against it.
To be honest, I do not think that everything will be perfect after they have been rebranded to UPC, but at least they showing now some efforts to improve the situation and avoid known pitfalls.
On the other side, when I look at the progress phone providers in Switzerland have made in the last year, then I can draw only one conclusion: The competition has increased and thus the fight for market share is getting harder. This means you have to deliver more or be cheaper. Since nobody wants to cut his own earnings, if he does not need to, they will try to increase (or at least make the customer aware that they might have increased) their services respectively the quality of their service. Of course this can also happen in comparison to the main competitor (in Switzerland is this Swisscom, the semi-state-controlled telephone company). There was an ad campaign at the beginning of this year, in which Cablecom directly attacked Swisscom and said that they would deliver more speed for less money.
However: The new provider is emerging from old Cablecom with a lot of "bad baggage" concerning their image. I will look critically at the development and decide with my next own flat if I will choose Cablecom - oh sorry; UPC - again.
Leave a comment