Research Proposal for Ace Cable Company

1. Target a new customer segment that id young and always ready to try something new and exciting.

Make a customer analysis and segment the market. What impact does your analysis have on the current business model of the company?

What 3 pieces of information should try to find out from your existing customers whilst researching their needs?

Comcast Corporation is the nation's leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services, with 24.1 million cable customers, 12.4 million high-speed Internet customers and 3.5 million voice customers. Comcast is principally involved in the development, management and operation of broadband cable networks and in the delivery of programming content.

This section will focus on customers’ needs, identifying collaborators and their strategic goals and identifying the competition that provides similar products.

Also the loss that Rogers Cable could incur as a result of customer erosion should be taken into consideration while choosing an alternative.

Comcast’s biggest assets are its stakeholders. A large variety of up-to-date products are not as valuable if you do not have good service to back those products up, as well as a good reputation in always putting the customer first. This is especially true in the technological field where customers lack knowledge of the new advances. Comcast provides excellent service for all customers’ needs with its very own online help desk. You can not only view your account statements but also obtain a wide variety of help and useful information. Comcast help offers a virtual customer service representative available 24/7 to answer all technical support and customer service questions. This service also allows you to search for your answer, use FAQ’s, email customer support

Comcast is a large cable and satellite television provider in the United States. The company has been plagued with internal weaknesses and external threats in recent years and is in desperate need of turning around its customer service department as quickly as possible. Aside from customer service, the way the television industry is marketed to is changing, Comcast has to stay on the cutting edge in price, product quality, flexibility of plans, and customer service. Comcast has many different areas of their business that need to be analyzed to see where they can invest time and monetary resources to improve the quality of their product and service to their customers.

According to Stafford and Heilprin, “American Cable Communications (ACC) was one of the largest cable operators in the United States (AirThread Case).” ACC serviced roughly 24.1 million video subscribers, 13.2 million high-speed internet subscribers, and 4.6 million landline telephony subscribers. In 2007, ACC saw revenues of $30.9 billion and had net income equaling $2.6 billion. In order to adapt to the changes in the industry, ACC started aggressively acquiring smaller companies, which resulted in huge customer growth and the development of, “a strong corporate finance team with significant acumen in identifying, valuing, structuring, and executing corporate control transaction (AirThread Case).” That being said, ACC has set its sights on yet another company--AirThread Connections--with the expectation of further revenue growth and customer acquisition and retention.

8. Threat of New Entrants: “There are a number of low-cost carriers (LCCs) in the domestic market and the Company competes with LCCs over a very large part of its network.”

First, we will analyze the targeted customer and the proposition designed by each company to attract them. In this part, there is a description of each market target and how each company has taken advantage of each unique position in the industry.

The next study that is examined was the Five Competitive Forces. This shows the industry’s competitors, threats of new entrants and substitutes, and the power of the customers and suppliers. The main rival competitors within the TV service providers industry are Dish Network, Direct TV, Comcast Cable, Time Warner Cable, and Atlantic Broadband. The rivalry of these competitors could lead to lower profits due to price competition and new technology as each is trying to stay competitive in the industry.

The SWOT analysis also reveals another weakness, “fickleness.” Fickleness of cable and satellite customers is based on the low brand loyalty and high churn rates. In order to reduce customer defection to competitors TFC must develop brand loyalty and not only attract new customers but retain those that it already possesses. The opportunity facing TFC is the fact that it is in a position to address its market

Upon defining the research question(s), the investigative questions need to be identified throughout the case study. For this case, the investigative questions are: What are the percentages of readers/subscribers using the reader service cards currently in comparison to the years past? If there is a decline detected in the usage of reader cards, what are the alternative methods that they are using to contact businesses and companies? Is there any way to implement different strategic means of these methods to enhance advertising revenue? After identifying the investigative questions, the management questions are the next step on the management-research question hierarchy. The management questions for this case include: Will Penton Media experience a decline in revenue due to the alternate methods of advanced advertising technology of customer inquiry stimulation? Penton Media will need to make a management decision is the last step for the hierarchy. In this case, Penton Media will need to decide whether to terminate the use of reader service cards in the magazines they advertise and replace the advertisements with alternate methods of advanced technology advertising. If they do decide to implement a more strategic technologically advanced method of advertisement, the readers and subscribers will be able to directly contact businesses and companies they are interested in on a present

In our extensive research on Time Warner Cable, we found out that Time Warner is one of the biggest names in the cable industry. On the other hand they are know to have notoriously bad customer service, which in turn limits the amount of customers they bring in, and increases the amount of customers that cancel their service. To deal with these problems we have come up with multiple marketing recommendations. In order to get rid of the reputation of bad service Time Warner has to advertise their new and improved customer service so that people will want to buy from Time Warner Cable. One way to start improving customer service is to offer an online survey so that the customers know that their opinion is what’s most important to Time Warner Cable. The survey will not just ask if their problems were solved or if the representative was good. It will ask in depth questions about what the customer thought about that particular representative. They also can give follow up surveys a few weeks after a phone call. These surveys will be there to see if the problem that the customer experienced is arising again and to make sure that there are no new problems. These surveys show that Time Warner Cable truly does care for the wellbeing of their customers. Along with surveys Time Warner Cable can also offer holiday specialties such as reduced prices for the holiday season. They can market this by