New research from Paywizard has revealed that consumers give higher negative ratings to traditional cable, satellite and IPTV pay-TV operators than online video-on-demand (VoD) providers at every stage of the customer journey.
The figures show however that OTT subscription services also struggle to keep customers happy, receiving significant negative scores at each contact point in the customer journey.
The survey of more than 3,000 consumers across three bellwether markets – the UK, the US and the Philippines – identifies the top three most negative interactions for customers of both traditional and OTT services. 26 per cent of respondents were unhappy about the way an inaccurate bill or payment problem was dealt with, followed by cancelling a subscription (22 per cent) and contacting customer service (21 per cent).
Respondents to the survey also give OTT providers higher positive ratings in eight out of 10 categories – from making sign-up easy, to recommending content, to dealing with billing, to facilitating service cancellation. There were only two areas in which traditional operators perform better in consumer eyes than OTT rivals in terms of providing a positive experience: contacting customer service (58 per cent versus 51 per cent) and upgrading/downgrading their package (56 per cent to 53 per cent).
“There is a perception in the TV market that OTT providers are performing much better than their traditional counterparts, however this research clearly demonstrates that OTT providers are far from perfect and are, in fact, only just better in many key areas of the customer journey,” said Bhavesh Vaghela, Paywizard’s chief executive.
“Traditional pay-TV providers have a lot of work to do to ensure a positive customer experience, and OTT services cannot take it for granted that their subscribers are happy at each point of consumer engagement.”
The full research report, Show the Love with Customer Experience, can be downloaded here.
