Changes to VDN Cable

Many residents of District 2 subscribe to VDN Cable for television and Internet service. First let me say what an exceptional company this is. The complex where I live was among VDN's first clients. Then owner Phillip Gale use to make regular visits to our property in person. Well the little company grew and a few years ago it was purchased by Bell Canada.

You cannot just pick up the phone and subscribe to VDN. They have contracts with specfic buildings. In the case of District 2, most condos and apartments are with the VDN family. It is a wonderful alternative to Videotron. The TV channel selection is generous while the cable internet hookup is lightning fast. They also have good customer service.

A few weeks ago I was surprised to see VDN switch their American affiliates from Plattsburgh and Burlington to Boston. For viewers whom, for instance,taped the Guiding Light soap opera at 3 p.m. on CBS weekdays, the Boston affiliate runs the show at 9 a.m.

Here is what Terry Shannon, Director of the Bell Video Group responsible for VDN & Wireline Video Operations, told me.

When customer complaints and escalations regarding related poor signal quality and outages were brought to his attention in December he asked his team to investigate severity, frequency of occurrence and intervals. The results of his investigation highlighted consistent service degradation, an unacceptable customer experience, an increase in customer complaints and many customer disconnects. VDN then proceeded to establish an action plan to come up with alternate signal feed options as well as a change notice communication to customers. The initial plan called for a formal advance notice to all VDN customers in the March 2009 billing invoice mail out. Six weeks following mail out, they were to proceed with respective channel changes. Due to the increasing number of customer complaints and the need to improve the situation sooner than later, they opted to change plans and act quickly Mr. Shannon says he personally listened to customers who advised that they were disconnecting their service because they could no longer tolerate such poor signal quality. They could not watch or record their favourites without experiencing problems. In several instances, VDN customers had made arrangements to view TV at their neighbour's residences because they could no longer count on watching their favourites from beginning to end without a service interruption. "At the end of the day, our valued customers were asking why they were paying for such a poor quality viewing experience," he said.

"As it is our responsibility and privilege to provide quality products and services, we made the decision to immediately address customer concerns / complaints and change to alternate feeds. While customer response was immediate and very positive with many calls of thanks noting evident new quality of service, we remained very concerned about making such changes prior to our planned communication to our customers. While customer complaints and escalations about signal quality ceased, we certainly did receive calls from customers about the lack of notification prior to respective changes. While we fixed one problem in the sincere interest of customer service and a positive customer viewing experience, we unfortunately created another by upsetting some of our customers due to lack of notice and their unfamiliarity of new feeds. The communication to VDN customers will continue as planned with the March billing invoice mail out although in this particular case it is unfortunately after the fact."

There is also the matter with grid information which needs updating. Mr. Shannon says VDN engineers are working on the alignment of the program guide to ensure that all stations reflect accuracy including call letters and logos. The audio / video sync is also being finetuned.

Log on to www.vdn.ca to read more about this service.