It's rumbling in cable land again. The European Commission has agreed, subject to conditions, to the takeover of cable operator Ziggo by Liberty Global, the parent company of industry peer UPC. After the takeover, Ziggo and UPC will continue under the name Ziggo and, according to CEO Mike Fries of Liberty Global, this will create a 'national cable champion' that reaches 90 percent of all Dutch households.

That cable champion will first be overhauled in various areas. The subscriptions of UPC and Ziggo show strong differences: the prices are different, they use different decoders (you buy the receiver at Ziggo and you rent the device at UPC) and they offer different internet speeds, according to the Dutch Consumers' Association.

According to NRC Q approximately 4.500 positions will be lost due to the merger of the 900 positions, more than what the unions had taken into account. The merger saves 160 million euros per year, starting in 2018. Of this, 36 million euros will go to Ajax's main sponsorship in the coming years. With the announcement on November 7 that Ziggo will be the new main sponsor of Ajax, Ziggo's customer service became overloaded. People who want to cancel their subscription were not immediately helped but called back later. OBI4wan recorded more than 12 social media reactions in the 8.500 hours after the news became known, of which several hundred were positive and slightly more negative.

In December 2013 – less than a year ago – Ziggo CFO Bert Groenewegen put in a interview explains that telecom companies such as Ziggo are mainly busy rolling out innovations. The market of 'everyone connected anytime, anywhere' offers many opportunities and the best is yet to come. In addition, there is a strong focus on customer retention – despite the monster merger, competition remains. “You have to keep it simple: customers must be satisfied with products and the associated services, such as technicians or contact centres. We also have to deal with reputation and image, which is why we conduct extensive monthly research among two thousand customers on these points. We also look at how the customer uses the products, for example via laboratories and user groups,” says Groenewegen. Ziggo was going through a major investment program at that time, also in the field of CRM systems. Groenewegen no longer wants to deal with 'households' or 'connection addresses', but considers the individual to be Ziggo's customer: “We want to know who uses which products and what their preferences are, so that we can respond accordingly.”

From a recent survey of Telecompaper shows that the major players in triple play have made improvements in terms of service quality. 56 percent of Dutch households have a so-called triple play subscription with television, internet and calling. In the second quarter of 2013, the average NPS across all providers was -17, compared to -2014 over the same period in 6. Ziggo customers score the highest when it comes to customer satisfaction with the service and scores an NPS of 0, merger partner UPC scores considerably lower (-13).

Malfunctions and solutions for the month of September 2014.
In December the Dutch Consumers' Association with a total overview.

Of course it is highly speculative, but there seems to be a correlation between the NPS of both parties and the opening hours of the service departments. You can contact Ziggo with technical questions every day from 07.00:08.00 in the morning until midnight. At UPC they start a little later (22.00:21.00) and end a little earlier (4,4:XNUMX). Perhaps UPC's invoices are a bit more complicated, because UPC's general customer service is in operation an hour longer during the week than at Ziggo (until XNUMX p.m.). Both cable companies do not service on Sundays. By the way: if you want to become a customer of UPC and would like to order a package by telephone, you must search carefully and click at least three times for a telephone number. At Ziggo this is found with a click. I am very curious what the opening hours of the new Ziggo will be. And what the new customer service operation – which will soon be responsible for XNUMX million customers – will look like. There's something at stake.

Erik Bouwer

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