LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida — A panel of top small cable company executives said that while improving the overall customer experience is a primary goal for operators — especially as broadband competition heats up — maintaining a strong line of communication with customers is essential.

“I think A-plus-B equals customer experience,” said Buckeye Broadband president Geoff Shook at The Independent Show panel session titled “The Impact of Industry Evolution” and moderated by NCTC president and CEO Lou Borrelli. “I think the A would be customer service, but the B part that we have to zero in on is customer care. We have the opportunity as the more personalized provider to accelerate to accentuate the customer care, the fact that the service doesn't stop at the side of the house.” 

Schurz Communications chief technology officer Tom Williams added that it is essential that operators not only keep the lines of communication open with customers, but that they communicate in the way they want to. 

Also from The Independent Show: Borrelli Says New Name Emphasizes NCTC Strength

“Maybe they don’t want to make a phone call,” Williams said. “Maybe they want to do a text chat over their phone. They want to get the information and talk to us the way that they want to talk to us, not in the way that we want them to talk to us.”

Shook added that while communication is essential, techs and other cable employees should keep the message simple, direct and with as little jargon as possible. Sometimes, he said, too much information can “torpedo” the customer experience. 

“There’s a razor’s edge between too much communication and not enough,” Shook said. “We tend to not saturate but thoroughly communicate.”

Communication also means letting customers know in advance when there is going to be a service disruption due to planned maintenance or other factors, he added.  

“Bad news does not get better with time,” Shook said. “If we know that there is something intrusive getting ready to happen, in the field we like to make absolutely sure that we’ve communicated it thoroughly so it is not a surprise.”

Williams added that operators have to consider what messaging they are sending out to customers and be careful not to flood them with marketing messages that force them to overlook important service information.

“You can throw so many marketing messages out that they're not going to listen to the technology message of an outage,” Williams said. “There's a real balance you have to play there, or else their not going to listen to ‘There’s going to be a 5 minute outage on Tuesday night at 12:30 a.m.,’ and then they're online and it drops anyway, because you’ve sent so many marketing messages that they just delete all the messages coming from us.”

Conway Corp. chief marketing officer Crystal Kemp said it is important for operators to stress that customer experience isn’t just a priority, it is one of their core values.

“Because our priorities can change, our values usually don't,” Kemp said. “We are constantly putting that in front of people, in front of our employees, in front of our customers, to say along with reliability, along with innovation, along with all of those things, customer experience is a core value.”  

Operators also stressed the importance of their local presence, which gives companies a regular opportunity to reinforce their brand. 

“I’ve been to more franchise meetings than I care to talk about, but every single one of them they are appreciative of how local we are,” Williams said. “It is their residents that are answering the phones every day, or responding to a message or coming to their homes.” 

He added that it makes a big difference, especially when small operators are competing against larger operators that have huge bureaucracies and make it difficult for customers to access care reps. 

“It’s not hard,” Williams said. “You have to make it easy to work with. You want to delight your customer.” ￭

Privately-held Schurz Communications said it has purchased Ohio-based New Knoxville Telephone Co. (NK Telco), a fiber provider that operates in the west central portion of that state. 

The deal will mark Schurz’s sixth broadband purchase in about 10 years, beginning with its 2012 purchase of Orbitel Communications. 

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter. 

“Schurz remains dedicated to connecting communities through access to information and empowering engagement, and we are proud to bring NK Telco into our portfolio,” Schurz CEO Todd Schurz said in a press release. “We have deep experience with broadband businesses and look forward to supporting NK Telco’s growth and expansion in Ohio. The company aligns with our ongoing mission of uniting people through communications services.”

NKTelco has been in business since 1905 and offers data, voice and video services to residential and business customers in communities located throughout West Central Ohio, including New Knoxville, New Bremen, Minster, Fort Loramie, Botkins, Anna, Maria Stein, Chickasaw, Osgood, Russia, Jackson Center, Sidney, Piqua and Versailles. Its current management team will continue to lead the business under the NKTelco brand.

“Schurz has a long history of supporting broadband companies and we are fortunate to be part of its family of businesses,” NK Telco general manager Preston Meyer, said in a press release. “With this support, NK Telco will be able to accelerate plans of expanding its regional fiber network. In addition, we plan to announce Gigabit speeds and more cloud based offerings while continuing to deliver our superior customer service. We appreciate the expanded opportunities that being part of the Schurz family brings for our employees. Ultimately our partnership supports our investment in our local communities and increases our ability to pursue growth and expansion opportunities.”

Also as part of the transaction, Schurz will become owners of NK Telco’s 4.5% investment in Com Net, an Ohio-based communications company, which will enable greater connectivity throughout the state.

Stifel served as financial advisor and FGKS Law served as legal advisor to NK Telco. Barnes & Thornburg served as legal advisor to Schurz.

South Bend, Indiana-based Schurz Communications has signed onto to deploy Nrby, a mobile collaboration platform for technology workers.

Schurz will first deploy the platform with its Antietam Broadband division based in Hagerstown, Maryland. Nrby said Schurz also plans to launch its platform across its four other broadband properties — Winona, Minnesota’s Hiawatha Broadband; Sergeant Bluff, Iowa’s Long Lines Broadband; Burlington, Vermont’s Burlington Telecom; and Mericopa, Arizona’s Orbitel Communications – possibly by the fourth quarter of 2019.

Related: WOW Signs Onto Nrby’s App-Based Productivity Tools for Techs

The Nrby app, which run on the iOS and Android-based smart phones of field techs, provides operators with the ability to identify and repair potential network outages before they occur. They also offer technicians the ability to alert their peers of potential hazards.

For example, a tech might see a coax hanging low after a storm. He can pin the issue in the Nrby platform, notifying his broader group about it, and initiating a conversation as to whether it’s in fact a problem, and what might be done about it if it indeed must be fixed.

“Schurz is serious about taking the next step in its mobile digital evolution and the Nrby platform is a perfect fit for service providers like us that are seeking new efficiencies across the board,” said Tom Williams, Schurz Communications’ VP of engineering and technology. “The safety of our field workers and our customers, however, remains Schurz’s chief business concern, but also one that can now be improved through the implementation of technology. Nrby’s Solo Worker safety feature alone was worth Schurz investigating the platform further. It’s breadth is impressive.”

CHICAGO — Bridging the digital divide in small rural communities is still a top priority and one that can help operators drive sales growth even as video customers dwindle, a panel of top small cable CEOs said at The Independent Show’s Opening General Session.

“Providing that local connection, and not just driving the content of those customers, [is critical],” said Buckeye Broadband president and general manager Geoff Shook at the session titled Hot Topics, Cool Leaders. “Owning that relationship from the edge of the end user’s device all the way through the businesses.”

MCTV president Katherine Gessner added that just providing the service isn’t enough for success. Education is a key part of the puzzle.

Gessner told the audience that in MCTV’s initial moves to convert some newly acquired customers from fairly antiquated systems to fiber-to-the home, they were reluctant to switch, even though converting meant they would get data speeds four times faster than their old DSL service.

“They didn’t understand what you could do with it [higher speeds],” Gessner said. “We found out there was a waiting list for DSL. They didn’t want to switch because they were scared that if our service didn’t work they couldn’t go back.”

For Schurz Communications, president and CEO Todd Schurz said one solution has been to partner with other providers in building out broadband networks. Schurz is currently working with local governments, using some state grants in Vermont and Minnesota, working with telephone co-ops in Iowa, electric co-ops in Minnesota, and Native American nations in Minnesota and Arizona.

“What we have found, all of these are structured differently, there’s no one model that fits everything,” Schurz said. “But it’s something that everybody realizes they need to do.”

“If you can go to some of these local entities and say, ‘You don’t have to build a digital headend, you don’t have to worry about all of that infrastructure, and you can put your resources into upgrading the local network, and we will then take the handoff,’ that seems to work pretty well,” he said.

As the industry moves closer toward 5G wireless services, smaller operators are helping to lead the way. At Shentel, executive VP and chief operating officer David Heimbach said that while his company is moving forward on wireline initiatives like DOCSIS
3.1 — which should be completed by the end of the year — they are also making inroads with 5G.

Heimbach said Shentel is currently trialing a 5G service, but there is still plenty of time before that service becomes essential. Of the 5 billion discrete wireless customers worldwide, he said, only one-third are on a 4G network and only 15% of mobile customers are expected to have 5G by 2025.

“This has a long tail on it,” Heimbach said.

But small operators are forging ahead, building out their networks and providing state-of-the-art service to customers, largely funded by their own coffers.

Gessner said that although MCTV did look into obtaining federal grants to build its fiber network, it didn’t make sense in the long run. MCTV began overbuilding its network with fiber to the home in 2014 or 2015 and last year began acquiring a few small properties near its traditional territory. The upgrades have resulted in strong broadband growth, she said.

“We shut off the analog plant in the first system in November and went from 0% internet penetration to about 20% in about seven months,” Gessner said. “It really opened our eyes to the need for rural broadband.” 

Anaheim – Video isn’t quite dead yet, it’s just taking a different train, according to a Monday (July 30) panel session at The Independent Show here. And small operators are finding ways to pair content offerings with broadband to satisfy changing consumer habits.

Read More: MCN's Coverage of The Independent Show

At the opening session, “Tackling the Challenge of Change… and Everything Else,” Multichannel News managing director, content Mark Robichaux and a panel of executives at top mid-sized and small operators picked apart the business, which has been dominated over the past few years by broadband and commercial services. The panel insisted that despite high programming costs and changing viewing habits, video is still an important arrow in cable’s quiver.

Video is taking a different form and instead traditional lineups packed with linear networks, smaller operators are offering the product through broadband apps and OTT services.

Schurz Communications vice president, cable Brian Lynch agreed that the video business has evolved, but added the industry has seen this before.

“The video challenge is a real one, but we’ve survived DirecTV and Dish [Network] in 1993 to 1995. The outcome of that was we got better and stronger,” Lynch said. “I think the same thing is going to happen with the onset of OTT. It’s a clear risk, we have time to solve this, but the main focus has to remain high-speed data.”

Fidelity Communications president John Colbert said while broadband and business services are the profit centers, less expensive forms of video are gaining traction with consumers.

“The challenge is to find how do we provide video and find a way to do it less expensively. I’m still long on this industry,” Colbert said. “We still have the best pipe in the house.”

Still, Colbert said most of Fidelity’s new customers are single-play broadband. In the last 36 months Fidelity grew broadband by 36,000 customers, half of whom were single-play broadband subscribers. He added that making it easier for customers to navigate between different OTT services has helped grow that segment.

“The ease of that transition supports the fundamental growth of high-speed data,” Colbert said. “Video consumption is going up.”

At Cable One, which was one of the first cable operators to move broadband to the front seat years ago, chief operating officer Michael Bowker said ease of use is essential for success.

“Our goal is we don’t view [video] as friend or foe,” Bowker said. “We want to enable our customers to have access to consume the video product however they want. If they’re doing that over my HSD pipes, then I win in that scenario.”

Broadband is fueling most of the growth of small cable and it doesn’t show any signs of letting up soon. Colbert said in some recently acquired markets, penetration rates are in the high 30% range.

“I don’t see why we can’t have 70% penetration,” in those markets, Colbert said.

Small operators are at an advantage in rural areas because the competition can’t always invest the capital to offer superior speeds. That has even been the case for newer players.

At Allo Communications, which has overbuilt several markets in Nebraska and Colorado with fiber, the company has captured 80% to 90% market share in business services in some locations. It is expecting similar results in Lincoln, Neb., when it completes its fiber build there later this year.

“The avalanche is coming,” Allo president Brad Moline said.  

NCTI, the Colorado-based provider of cable and broadband technology training services, has signed a three-year enterprise license agreement with Schurz Communications, Inc.

Under the deal, Schurz will have the ability to select content applicable to its own specific business objectives at heavily discounted rates, NCTI said. NCTI is also helping Schurz to build career progression programs.

The program is expected to launch in mid-to-late February, beginning with technicians. 

RELATED: NCTI Rebrands as It Launches New Training Platform

“SCI ardently believes the most valuable asset to any company is its employees,” Tom Williams, VP of engineering and technology for Schurz’s broadband division, said in a statement. Vice President of Engineering and Technology, Broadband Division. “We want to attract and retain the best talent, and the best talent needs to know their employer cares enough to invest in their future.”

On the cable side, SCI operates Antietam Broadband (Hagerstown, Md.); Orbitel Communications (Maricopa, Ariz.); and Long Lines Broadband (Sergeant Bluff, Iowa).

Broadcaster Gray TV said it has reached a deal to acquire the TV and radio assets of Schurz Communications in a deal valued at about $442.5 million. The transaction comes on the heels of Media General’s $2.4 billion agreement to acquire Meredith Corp.

The deal is the latest in what could be a new push for consolidation in the broadcast market. Gray TV has about 76 stations in 45 markets in the South, Southwest, Midwest and West. With the addition of Schurz, Gray will grow to about 86 stations in 49 markets in 28 states, adding properties in Wichita, Kans., (KWCH-TV, CBS); Roanoke-Lynchburg, Va., (WDBJ-TV, CBS); Springfield, Mo., (KYTV, NBC); South Bend Ind. (WSBT, CBS); Rapid City, S.D., (KOTA, ABC); and Anchorage, Ak., (KTUU, NBC). WDBJ in Roanoke-Lynchburg, Va., is where two journalists – Alison Parker and Adam Ward – were murdered on air by a former employee in August.

The sale comes as some analysts believe that a new consolidation wave could sweep the broadcast business, as stations look to increase their leverage with content providers.

In a statement Gray said it would divest two stations – KAKE-TV in Wichita, WNDU in South Bend – to comply with Federal Communications Commission regulations. In addition, Gray said it would combine its existing operations in Georgia and South Dakota with Schurz’ stations in those markets. It plans to offer Schurz’s Augusta, Ga., station WAGTV in the upcoming FCC spectrum auction.   

"Today is a momentous day in Gray's 118-year history," said Gray CEO Hilton H. Howell, Jr., in a statement. "Through the Schurz transaction, we will significantly expand the quality of our portfolio of leading television stations. We welcome more dedicated reporters, account executives, and technologists to our growing family. Quite simply, Gray's existing stations will make the Schurz stations stronger, while the Schurz stations will make our existing stations better."

Schurz, based in Mishawaka, Ind., owns TV and radio stations, newspapers and four cable systems in Arizona, Florida and Maryland with about 90,000 subscribers.  Gray said Schurz’s non-broadcast assets would not be included in the sale. The company was created in 1872 when Alfred B. Miller and Elmer Crockett founded the South Bend Tribune, and their descendants still own the firm today.

"In a rapidly consolidating industry where size and scale matter more than ever before, we have come to the realization that Gray Television would be the best steward to ensure our stations succeed over the long-term," explained Todd Schurz, President and CEO of Schurz. "Gray knows how to operate top stations in small and medium-sized markets, and they have an entrepreneurial and decentralized culture," he continued. "Moreover, Gray shares our commitment to local communities, staffs, journalistic ideals, and the broadcasting industry. Being part of a larger company with these important credentials will create more opportunities for employees and the communities that we all love."