Time Warner Cable’s New Online Care Team
- By:
- Jeff Simmermon
- Categories:
- Cool Stuff, Customer Care, Product Launches, What's New
This is really exciting stuff — I’m thrilled to announce that we’ve got a new Online Customer Care Team.
Led by Online Customer Care Manager Phil Blum (@TWCablePhil), the four-person team uses e-mail, Twitter, and other forms of social media to get customers help anytime, anywhere, and on any device. It’s just time that we did this – civil (and uncivil) society is migrating online, and we’ve got to meet our customers where they live, play, and talk.
Phil Blum (@TWCablePhil) is the team leader — his official title is Online Customer Care Manager. According to Phil, “We’ve had approximately a ten percent increase in volume each day since we went live, and we’re expecting that to pick up significantly as awareness increases. We stand ready to handle as many of our customers as would like to reach us. So far, our customers seem to enjoy the personalized service that we’re offering.”
Before launching the Online Customer Care Team, Blum spent six years managing a Time Warner Cable call center. He managed a team of Tier 1 tech support agents, and has extensive experience working with billing, tech support, and care issues.
The team is available for live, realtime care discussions from 9AM – 10:30 PM EST Monday – Friday, and from 12PM to 8:30 PM EST Saturday and Sunday. To contact the Online Customer Care Team, all one needs to do is tweet an issue to @twcablehelp or e-mail twcable.help@twcable.com. You can reach team members individually at
@TWCablePhil
@TWCableBrienH
@TWCablePaulS
@TWCableBryanP
However, all tweets sent to the @TWCableHelp handle are seen by every member of the team.
If you have feedback for me or the team, please feel free to leave it in the comments or e-mail me directly. This is a work-in-progress, and we’re refining it based on your input.
Joe
The Frustration With Customers Caught in The Middle With Channel Contract Negotiations:
Greetings Everyone,
I am sure that many of you are aware of the frustration and political pressures that often happens from time to time as TV service provider companies (all cable companies, Satellite systems, U-verse) and their host stations work out renegotiation contracts. I would say that based on research I have done, about 90% of the time, agreements are able to be reached. But there is always great concern and anxiety with the battles and challenges associated with trying to keep costs down against dealing with everything costing more because of inflation.
I hate the political blame game and bickering that goes on down to the wire when stations have trouble negotiating and customers are caught in the crossfire. Earlier it was TWC and Fox and more recently it was Comcast and Food Network. I understand that TWC’s current contract with ABC is up for renewal at the end of August.
What can be done to allow some sort of mediation or automatic arbitration agreement to stop the possibility of quality-channels being lost? Is there any way that the Cable Act of 1992 could somehow be revised to allow some sort of arbitration so that fair deals can be reached on both sides? This system of arbitration would only be used if the cable company, for example TWC, could not reach an agreement with the host provider?
Are subscribers going to face another blame game accusation between ABC and TWC at the end of August? What can be done to prevent this? It just seems that there should be a better system in place so that customers don’t have to be involved in a dispute between multi-million dollar companies. What do all of you think could be done to assist in this issue?
Jack
Updates: Latest Bug Reports For TWC-Navigator on SA-8300 MDN (no C box) Please note that I am from the Milwaukee Wisconsin area.
This seems to be an issue with the guide, not my box.
There are Titles of Channels in the Guide that have no station or channel assigned to them at all! (If users are in Milwaukee Wisconsin, or the Metro-Milwaukee area, try this:)
Example#1 Go under “Theme” now select the “Lifestyles” category and select “Cooking” or key in “Game Time Dine” using the keyboard. You will be taken to times for a show who’s channel number does not exist! It showed up the other day when I pressed Select as a “Comcast” station! (At least according to the channel banner!)
Example#2: Select “Theme” and Select “Sports” and select “Boxing” Going through the list it shows some 8:00 future match with no channel number indicated. I get the name of the fight, but no channel identifying information
The second issue:
The “Sports Now” Category only shows the same 3-4 channels listed regardless of how many sports may be showing now. Most of the time, only RFDTV, ESPN2, Showtime if it’s a Sports Movie, and HBO if it’s a Sports Movie ever show in the guide. No local sports on ABC, CBS, NBC, or Fox ever show up in the Sports Now Category. It has been this way for a year. The other “Now” categories, such as “News and Weather”, “Kids Now” are fully populated. If one of those four channels is not showing sports at the current time, even when there are sports on the networks, “Sports Now” shows “None.” The truncated “Sports Now” programs on the Access Menu have existed for me for at least a year. TWC-Milwaukee runs MDN-Navigator 2.4.6_19
Jack
Dear TWC,
In Milwaukee-Wisconsin, note that HBO Signature-HD and HBO Comedy-HD have been added! (Channels 1605 and 1607 respectively.) I am REALLY hoping for our division’s acquisition of HBO On Demand-HD! As TWC has ownership with HBO, I was surprised to see that this channel has not been added yet in Milwaukee.
A wonderful plus is that we now have at least 100 HD channels in our Milwaukee Wisconsin system and I want to thank TWC for their diligence in adding more HD content. You should be very proud of this. Thank you!
Jack
Dear TWC,
Multiple Problems With Incomplete Guide Data in several instances indicated below in the Milwaukee Wisconsin area on Navigator boxes:
Several neighbors and friends informed me that they could not do a search for the Mayweather-Mosley fight tonight on PPV when searching by Category or using the Keyboard on the Navigator Guide. When pressing “B” to Find Shows, and going to “Theme”, than “Sports”, than “Boxing” all that showed for them and me in the Search list was “No Upcoming Shows Are Available For This Title.” I can confirm that the fight showed up in Search listings about two days before, (with the price of the PPV and description intact.) As noted previously, for some strange reason, it takes about two days from the time a PPV event appears in the program listing for the price to show in the guide when pressing info on a search. When the price does not show, all you get in the program description of the event where the price is supposed to be is a dollar sign. ($)
I don’t know when the above started, but when we get that “No upcoming shows are available for this title” in the program list, the ONLY way to order is to scroll through the TIME GRID until the day and program shows up.
Additionally, listings are truncated. I talked about for the past year how the Sports Now categories of channels only repeat the same four to six channels even when sports are available on local channels that the Access Menu Sports Now feature doesn’t pick up. Using my channel guide line up as a reference, this is what I know about the channels that show and don’t show in the Access Menu for Sports Now: (Milwaukee Wisconsin division)
301: ESPN: Sometimes Shows
302: ESPN2: Sometimes Shows
303: ESPN U: Sometimes Shows
304: ESPN Classic: Never Shows
305: ESPN News: Never Shows
307: TWC-Sports (Local): Never Shows
309: Fox Sports: WI: Always Shows
316: Golf Channel: Never Shows
317: Speed Channel: Sometimes Shows
318: Fox Soccer: Sometimes Shows
319-321: Fox College Sports Stations: Sometimes Shows
323: Verses: Sometimes Shows
324: NFL Network: Never Shows
325: NBA TV: Never Shows
326:MLB Network: Never Shows
327: Tennis Channel: Never Shows
328: Fuel TV: Sometimes Shows
329:G4: Sometimes Shows
330: Outdoor Channel: Always Shows
331: Sportsmen’s Channel: Always Shows
333: Big Ten Network: Sometimes Shows
334-337 Big Ten Network Alternates: Sometimes Shows
603: HBO: Sometimes Shows When Sports Movie is Playing
645: Showtime Extreame: Always Shows when a Sports Movie Plays
229: RFD TV: Always Shows (This isn’t really a sports channel)
Because of the inconsistency of the Sports Now Menu shows in the Access Menu showing at any point in time, (and so few of them,) it makes this feature for TWC Milwaukee subs virtually useless.
Most of the time Guide Data, where it shows Information for Movies and for example Page 1 of 2 when you press Info and use the Page+/- button to go to Page 2, the Guide Data is cut off. The only time where multiple pages of information seem to be complete is for PPV and On-Demand Movies.
Obviously, rebooting the box has no effect on these issues. There are so many other things relating to incomplete guide data. Series often don’t list episodes especially older ones. I cannot count the number of times I have scrolled to shows like The Bob Newhart Show to find the description: “Psychologist Bob Hartley counsels patients in Chicago.” or for The Odd Couple-” “A slob and a neat-freak share a Manhattan Apartment.” I mean, The word knows that! This tells me zilch about the name of the episode that is playing. This means I have to set up a recording to watch the show to see what episode it is because the guide didn’t say? AWFUL!
Your system’s head-end in Milwaukee Wisconsin needs an overhaul to get more accurate guide data. Please work to get MDN 2.5 (currently, Milwaukee Wisconsin is on MDN 2.4.6_19 rolled out to Milwaukee and Metro-Milwaukee Wisconsin subscribers. As stated, MDN 2.5 has:
1.) Searches beginning on the show being watched
2.) Show categories/listing titles no longer repeat
3.) The DVR has a jump-back compensation feature when rewinding
4.) Taking future action on a show in the Time Grid has an “All Showings” prompt..
You need to inform your Milwaukee Wisconsin engineers that Navigator’s guide data and listings are incomplete. Other people have the same issue, so I know it is NOT my box!
Jack
Dear TWC,
Thanks again for this wonderful blog and the reaching out to help the community! I have asked a general composite of friends, neighbors, and technology people, what would be a “Wish List” for updates to the Navigator Guide software. The responses that people shared were the following:
They just want Navigator to bring back what Passport used to have. My own top priorities for Navigator remain as they have been for four years:
1.) Descriptive Keyword Searching- (Like they have on DVR Manager, now give us this on the boxes!) I want to compliment TWC for the roll-out of DVR Manager to your North Carolina Divisions! I have friends there, and they are just thrilled with this innovation! I eagerly await the roll-out of this feature nationally!
2.) Longer show descriptions, that include things like Actors, Directors, Airdates, and Category of program type when the Info button is pressed. Program information that is not truncated or cut-off.
3.) Manual Recording-The ability to over-ride the Time Grid for instances where customers may only want to record part of a show. This will conserve DVR space for customers should this feature be added, allowing them to record specifically the portions of the shows they want to see.
4.) Please add either a “Crime” Category or a “Classics” category to your Movie List Choices when browsing by Theme! (or both!) The Godfather was on today on one of my local channels and I could not find it by doing ANY of the theme searches for movies! (I had to use the Keyboard to type in the title.) This is where a “Classics” Movie Theme Category could be used. Such a category could allow the customer to browse by Movie Theme in Search of Classic films that Navigator could define as four-star movies. Classic four-star films could be all in one place! I am confident that everyone would LOVE THIS!
Thanks for listening and the opportunity to provide this feedback.
Jack
Jack
Hey All,
As most of you know with Navigator, the guide organizes or I should say DISORGANIZES all keyboard content by Title Name. I cannot wait for an update that reduces all search results to an easier format, especially for sports searches! Looking a Baseball game to watch was such a nightmare! The following remains one of Navigator’s most potent shortcomings in searching. Sorry if this repeats for some of you, but as newbies are getting converted, this is important to say:
1.) When Searching For Sports in Navigator, there is currently no way to search by names of games or teams. Want to watch a Baseball game? Go to B “Find Shows” and Select Theme (Sports) and scroll to “baseball.”:
2.) What follows is NOT the names of games and teams, but a listing of baseball titles! You cannot currently type on the keyboard the name of your favorite sports team and get listings related to that team. If you want to watch a baseball game, you can’t even type in the word “baseball” on the keyboard, but must type the first letter of the description of the show name, which happens to be “M.” M????? Yes, that’s not a typo, you have to type “M” on the Keyboard for Major League Baseball. Fortunately, you can still type “MLB” to get to Major League Baseball listings, but wouldn’t it be easier of you could just go to the keyboard, “Find Shows,” and do a Keyword Search for your favorite baseball team?
2.) You now have a list of “MLB Baseball Titles” using the above example. But your not even CLOSE to finding what you want. Using this example, you will find approximately 10-20 “MLB” baseball listings in the screen and have to open up each one in a tier by pressing the Select Key to see what team it is.
3.) Navigator users have to endure something like this:
MLB Baseball
MLB Baseball
MLB Baseball
MLB Baseball
MLB Baseball
MLB Baseball
MLB Baseball
4.)The dates are not even logically arranged! A listing when pressing Select might say, “No upcoming shows are available for this title.” The next listing might say the same thing. The third listing might show a game four days from now! The fifth listing might show a game on now. Even worse, when you scroll through the pages by pressing the Page +/- button it looks like, because you have 20 listings that look the same, that the list doesn’t move.
5.) I gave up trying to find the game. And note that doing a Theme Sports search for Baseball just brings up the same 10-20 Title show list. This has been Navigator’s biggest hindrance for the last five years.
6.) Title Searches are fine for names of movies, or when you have one or two instances when you know the name of a show you want to watch. However, for Sports, you want to quickly find the team and the game you want to see in a well, organized format. Navigator needs Keyword Search for these reasons on all the boxes ASAP. Any easier way to find sports teams is better than how Navigator is now.
Jack
Gas Electric Supplier
credit
Jack
TWC needs better Communications with Customers During Service Outages!
We had routine maintenance in our whole head-end go horribly wrong last night where everyone was out of cable service. (TWC-Milwaukee Wisconsin division and all surrounding areas.) For many hours, there was no way to reach TWC because at the call center, all customers were getting was busy signals.
TWC needs to implement a system at the local level informing customers of when scheduled maintenance is done, and and an estimated time of when the maintenance is scheduled to be completed with this information easy to obtain at their local website. Customers need to know is it maintenance related to a service problem, or a software update, and an estimate length of time that they will be out of service.
TWC needs to put local service outages on their website with information that the customer can understand. For us it started last night about 3am when our cable box was slow to respond to commands after being booted up. Approximately, 5am or 6am all of cable TV went down. The guide was no longer coming up, only channels 2-99 could be accessed by using the channel up/down buttons. I had to try to unplug and reboot my box, trying to see what the problem was. But had TWC-Milwaukee told customers ahead of time that service maintenance and/or updates were being performed, we would not have had to go through all of this for about five hours.
Service was restored according to many people around 8am. In the future, please provide to your local divisions, the courtesy of knowing when there is an outage in the area by posting this information on the local company web-page where it is easy to see and everyone would see that it’s not there boxes or TV’s that caused the problem.
We had this same problem back in January with Road Runner and busy signals to the call centers, because no one at TWC-Milwaukee was kind enough to give customers a heads up about Road-Runner Maintenance being done back in January or last-night into the early morning hours with everyone’s cable TV being out.
I would also ask the techs at the corporate blog to please respond with an article in the future about what customers should do if any part(s) of their TWC service are out and the call service centers have busy signals for several hours? They could than use this information for reference, especially what to do for service interruptions in an after- hours situation through website help, if service goes out after local business hours have closed.
Thanks for understanding
Jack
Chris
live support is the best choice.
Jack
Dear TWC Tech Team,
Thanks for working so hard on this blog to help out your customers! However, I was dismayed today to find out that a customer in Raleigh North Carolina has escalated an inquiry about Keyword Search coming to the Navigator program guide and was told by a higher-up that, “TWC does not see a need to add this feature because so few customers use it.”
I could not disagree more! Keyword search is offered by all of your competitors as a quick and easy way to find program information. It was a proven quick program finder of information in all the years of the Passport Software, and has been a foundation on many program guide systems for a decade. A feature that could make Navigator great, by having it restored, now just makes Navigator slightly above average. I have waited five years for the restoration of Keyword Search to the boxes and now find out, there aren’t any plans to add it. What a shame! I simply thought all this time, it was being worked on in the labs.
Is there anything customers can do to get TWC interested in re-adding this feature? Is there anything that TWC plans to do to make the keyboard easier to use? Title searches are just not enough or fast enough to get to program information quickly. This is especially true when a sports title, for example MLB (Major League Baseball) has 15 instances of the same title. TWC needs to find a way to narrow down the results when using the keyboard. I really thought and hoped that Keyword Search would help do that. I guess we will never see it.
In light of the above, I would ask a request of the support team to approximately every 3-5 months to please publish a blog concerning what new features are being worked on for Navigator. Please reconsider your refusal to add Keyword Search. I know that Keyword Search is available on Remote DVR Manager, but that is only available in Charlotte North Carolina at this time. When customers see that they CAN do Keyword Search on the My Services website when DVR Manager comes to their division, but CAN’T get Keyword Search on the boxes, it will be very upsetting to them.
Navigator is and always will be an inferior product until Keyword Search is added. Keyword Search is assumed to be a part of the technology associated with a 2010 and beyond cable guide. What ever happened to giving customers what they want? A program guide without keyword search in this technology era is like a car without air conditioning.
Jack
I believe the Navigator Guide should continue to grow and expand its features for both MDN/ODN boxes. I remain optimistic about this. I’ve asked people throughout the cable community what they would like to see added to improve the Navigator experience. The results were very interesting, diverse, and exciting!
I think that the program guide should be as easy and fun to use as possible. Information should be simple to find, easy to understand, and complete. In order of preference, this is my list of most desired Navigator features to improve the customers’ experiences with the on-screen guide.
Here’s my list:
1. Keyword Search
2. More Detailed Program Descriptions (especially for MDN boxes)
3. Guide Filtering
4. Manual Recording
5. Remote DVR Scheduling
6. Multi-Room DVR
Again, a special thank you to the wonderful TWC tech team for providing this blog for your customers!
Jack
A special thank you to the Tech team for updating the MDN Navigator boxes to version 2.5! Got it today. (Milwaukee Wisconsin, Division) (Tuesday, August 4, 2010) Some cool new additions:
1.) Guide searches now begin on the show being watched or program that you have highlighted in the guide when you press “B” (Find Shows.)
2.) DVR Compensation: Allows customers to set the amount of FF and RR jump back speed on the DVD. Options are Normal, More, Less, or Off.
3.) Show listings are better organized. Duplicate titles in the guide seem to be greatly reduced, if not eliminated!
4.) Someone told me that the DVR in this version now has 4x FF speed. COOL!
A great job! TWC! Seriously, if you guys can add Keyword Search for the keyboard to the boxes in the next upgrade, I think that would be great!
Thanks again TWC for these helpful Navigator Guide updates!
Jack
Ever since we had new cable lines put it, I was getting maybe three months without a reboot on Navigator MDN 2.4.6-19. As of today, maybe about eight hours apart, MDN 2.5.0-49 has rebooted twice. Has anyone else gotten a greater frequency of reboots with the new software?
Jack
Mike Canestaro
- The Senerio: You wonder what’s good on at 8 PM?
- My Navigator guide lists 533 chanels.
- I don’t subscribe to 533 chanels.
- That’s 130 pages of guide!
- I like only 55 chanels.
- Tell me folks: how do you wade you way thru that mess and find your 55?
Thanks Mike
Jack
Greetings TWC,
My SA-8300 (MDN) DVR died today when it spent several hours stuck in a reboot following an update. (It never got past the third fill in square on the Mystro Boot screen.)
The tech brought out a newer box, the SA-8300HDC and there are some nice new cool features about it, such as longer show descriptions, original air-date for series, search begins on show being watched or selected in the guide. Nearest Tune when activated is nice, because, when turned on, the guide turns to the nearest valid channel number if you select an incorrect channel number instead of the flashing question marks (???) that are on MDN.
My only complaint is that the SA/Cisco HDC boxes are a couple of notes slower than the legacy MDN boxes and there really needs to be a software update applied to SA/Cisco boxes to at least get the guide speed up to that of the old MDN boxes and the new Samsungs.
While Keyword Search remains my most requested feature for all of the Navigator Guides and boxes, the speed of browsing on the SA/Cisco HDC models running Navigator needs a “shot in the arm.”
I love the added details in the Program Listings! DVR Compensation, currently only available on Navigator MDN 2.5 or higher, should be added to ODN Navigator boxes. Good job TWC!
Jack