Localism on a grand scale and solid customer care for telephony and other advanced services make Bright House Networks’ Central Florida division our pick for System of the Year.

Orlando, Fla., city commissioner and mayor pro-tem Daisy Lynum considers herself a tough cookie. “I call things the way I see them,” she says, “and I’m not an easy person to deal with.” But when it comes to Bright House Networks, the cable operator serving Orlando and vicinity, Lynum finds little to be tough about.

“I truly have a wonderful relationship with them, and I don’t know of a better corporate relationship around. That’s a belief my fellow commissioners share,” she says. “Whatever event you go to around here, they show up and get very involved.”

Bright House’s Central Florida division, our pick for 2007 System of the Year, has impressed us with its stellar customer service and emphasis on local programming, but its penchant for unique community participation put it over the top when considering candidates for this year’s honor, which for the second consecutive year goes to one of the company’s Florida operations. (We singled out Tampa Bay in 2006 largely for the division’s customer care innovations [Dec. 18, 2006, issue].)

Central Florida management believes that community presence can keep Bright House ahead of current and future competitors, particularly in an era when consumers may have a hard time distinguishing services from cable, satellite and the telcos. And it’s putting serious money behind this belief.

Nothing raised the division’s community profile higher than its successful $15 million bid in 2006 for naming rights to the University of Central Florida’s football stadium, which opened in time for the 2007 college football season. The infrastructure for Bright House Networks Stadium was wired by the company itself, which has naming rights through 2022. The stadium spawned two additional projects. In late October, Bright House opened a retail store on campus, giving UCF’s 49,000 students the ability to buy the division’s digital, high-speed and telephony services, and try interactive and high-definition TV features under development. A few weeks later, Bright House added the UCF Channel to its video-on-demand lineup, making orchestra concerts, guest speaker appearances and other campus content available to the division’s 920,000 basic customers.

The kicker of this local engagement—literally: UCF played Tulsa for the Conference USA championship Dec. 1 at Bright House Networks Stadium, giving Bright House national exposure on ESPN, which presented the game. Minutes before kickoff, College Gameday co-host Lee Corso gave an additional plug, saying UCF would play “in beautiful, Bright House Stadium.” Bright House’s Central Florida division also made a deal with Conference USA for sponsorship rights to its championship game. So besides numerous stadium mentions from ESPN game announcer Dave Lamont and analyst Andre Ware, viewers saw graphics throughout the game citing Bright House’s sponsorship, as well as commercials for HDTV and other services, starting with the first break in the action . For the record, UCF beat Tulsa 44-25, capping a 10-3 season and sending the team to the Liberty Bowl, set for Dec. 29.

“We’re very excited about these innovations,” UCF official Grant Heston says. “When we looked at awarding the stadium rights—and this has been looked at for a long time—we wanted someone with an outstanding community reputation, someone we could be comfortable with. A lot of companies were evaluated, and as far as we’re concerned, Bright House was the perfect fit.”

The UCF arrangement is a landmark in two other respects, says J. Christian Fenger, division president at Bright House. “It sends a message to the area that we’re here to stay and here to invest, no matter what other competition comes in,” he says. “The second thing is that we get to build a relationship with the people who may become our future subscribers.”

BRIGHT HOUSE CALLING
The division’s consistently high ratings in J.D. Power & Associates’ customer satisfaction surveys go hand in hand with its large-scale localism. In J.D. Power’s 2007 Southeast residential phone survey, Bright House placed No. 1 in satisfaction (for the second straight year). Bright House placed second among all cable and DBS providers in another 2007 J.D. Power Southeast survey focusing on high-speed Internet access service.

One practice that’s helping the division score high is its “Welcome Call,” in which up to 60% of Bright House customers with new service installations are phoned within a week of the install and asked to grade service quality. If there are any lingering issues, an e-mail is sent to a field technician, who resolves the problem within 24 hours, says Central Florida customer care VP Bill Sievers.
Additionally, technical supervisors attend 10% of weekly telephony service installs; the supervisor oversees the installers and reassures customers that they are getting the best phone service possible.

ON-DEMAND OVERDRIVE
Eight months ago the division launched You On Demand, which is devoted to user-produced content. That’s just one of five channels of local on-demand programming available in Orlando. Besides You On Demand and UCF Channel, Bright House offers on-demand versions of Central Florida News 13 and News 13 en Español, the operator’s local all-news services, and Central Florida on Demand, which delivers music performances around the area, high-school sports and highlights of the system’s community outreach activities.

Customer feedback suggests a new level of comfort with the on-demand process and a desire to see more local coverage. “They see it as an efficient, elegant service,” says Robin Smythe, Central Florida News 13’s VP and general manager. “We see it as a logical leap in providing information 24/7.”

Orlando residents are invited to contribute videos to You On Demand; Smythe and her colleagues review the material for technical quality and appropriateness. More than 100 videos appear on the service each month in such categories as “Sneezing Babies” and “Living Room Karaoke.”

Fenger and his division associates declined to share You On Demand viewership data. Thanks to an information clampdown by Bright House’s corporate management, brought on by concerns that stats on Orlando or elsewhere might tip off the competition, Central Florida division executives wouldn’t share much about the system’s customer penetration beyond a basic count.

IN TRAINING FOR the TELCOs
What Fenger can say is that Central Florida’s population of digital, high-speed, phone, HDTV and DVR customers is well-beyond the levels of early 2005, when CableWorld first profiled the operation (Feb. 7, 2005, issue). At that time, the division had more than 373,000 digital customers (48% penetration) and 310,000 high-speed customers (40% penetration).

Bright House also declined to discuss Pivot, the wireless joint venture between Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox and Sprint. The division launched Pivot this past spring; Sprint has since announced a moratorium on new market rollouts.

“The competitive environment is changing so rapidly that we’re operating as if AT&T or Verizon will launch an overbuild here any minute,” Fenger explains. “Our battle plan is simple: Take care of the customer in as many ways as possible. If you give them unique products, reach out to them all over the place and provide customer care way beyond answering phones promptly or arriving to a service call on time, the customer will take care of us.”

City commissioner Lynum says she hasn’t heard of specific plans Verizon or AT&T might have about launching video service in the area. If either of them should arrive, Fenger promises that Bright House will have the bandwidth and new services it needs to compete.

To that end, switched digital video is being tested and will be deployed early in 2008. Several bandwidth upgrade options are under consideration, in association with other Bright House systems. More HD networks are on the way, as are additional diginets and a few interactive TV applications.

“We’re exploring a lot about the future,” says division marketing VP Cathy Schelb. “Whatever we do around here, it will be in line with giving customers an easier, convenient lifestyle. It’s all about meeting their needs.”

Bright House Networks
Central Florida
By the Numbers

Miles of plant: 19,000
Bandwidth: 750 MHz
Basic subscribers: 920,000
Basic rate: $50.79/mo.
Digital channels available: 325
Digital tier rate: $58.49/mo.
High-speed access rate: $29.95-59.95/mo.
Digital phone rate: $28.95-39.95/mo.
HDTV: 25 channels, including A&E, Discovery HD Theater, ESPN/ESPN2 HD, Food Network, HBO, HDNet, HDNet Movies, HD Showcase, HGTV HD, The History Channel, Mojo, Showtime, TBS HD,TNT HD, Universal HD, and local ABC, CBS, The CW, Fox, MyNetwork TV, NBC and PBS affiliates
HDTV rate: $6/mo.
DVR rate: $6.95/mo. (regular); $9.95/mo. (HD DVR)
VOD titles available per month: 6,300
Ad insertion: 45 channels

Bright House declined to provide subscriber and penetration counts for digital, high-speed, digital phone, HDTV, DVR and triple-play services.

Source: Bright House Netw


2007 System of the Year: Bright House Plays to the Fan Base :: CableWorld