AGENDA #5f

MEMORANDUM

TO:                  Mayor and Town Council

FROM:            Roger L. Stancil, Town Manager

SUBJECT:      Chapel Hill Customer Survey for Time Warner Cable

DATE:            September 11, 2006

INTRODUCTION

The Town’s franchise agreement with Time Warner Cable specifies that the company will periodically conduct random surveys of cable subscribers. The Chapel Hill Customer Survey (Attachment 1) was conducted in May 2006, and responses were compared to a 2003 study.

BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION

Time Warner contracted with Highline Research to conduct a customer satisfaction survey for subscribers within the Town of Chapel Hill. Telephone interviews were conducted with 300 randomly selected subscribers of Time Warner Cable. All respondents were heads of households, and equal proportions of men and women were interviewed. Interviewing was conducted May 25-31, 2006, by Aspen Media and Market Research of Boulder, Colorado.

Areas that were measured, with brief summaries of findings, include the following:

• Level of cable services
  Respondents were most likely to have digital cable.
• Ratings of cable TV reception
  Seventy-eight percent rated their cable TV reception as either excellent or good.
• Problems with cable services in the last year
  Forty-three percent said they had experienced problems with their service in the last year.
• Service issues or changes in service
  About 44 percent of the respondents said they had tried to contact Time Warner Cable in the last year regarding a service issue or a change in their service.
• Quality of service in the home from installers and technicians
  Various service aspects received excellent or good ratings from a majority.
• Ratings of basic tier service
  Close to half of the respondents rated Time Warner Cable’s basic tier as good; another 21 percent rated it as excellent; about 16 percent rated it as average;and 5 percent as poor.
• Time Warner Cable providing an adequate and easy-to-read bill
  Eighty-five percent felt that Time Warner Cable provided an easy-to-read bill.

The Chapel Hill Customer Survey for Time Warner Cable is attached for your information and review.

ATTACHMENT

1. Chapel Hill Customer Survey for Time Warner Cable with correspondence from Cindy Ray Keene, Public Affairs Manager for Time Warner Cable (begin new page 1).