Cable Vs. Telco Should be Like Coke Vs. Pepsi, Cable Bosses Say
Increased competition between cable and phone companies is spurring local cable operators to try to reengineer their corporate culture, local general managers said. As these companies compete for customers in video, voice and broadband, employees need a greater sense of competition, said Comcast Northern Va. Area Vp-Gen. Mgr. Chris Whitaker. “There is a significant cultural shift that our company has to go through,” she said. The companies likeliest to succeed with such campaigns already have their workers’ loyalty, a business professor said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
In Va., Cox tells new employees to take “competition personally” their first hour on the job, said Gen. Mgr. Janet Barnard. Cox offers employees incentives to buy mobile phone plans from corporate partner Sprint Nextel and encourages them to shun products from rival Verizon. Cable companies ought to have a Coke-Pepsi attitude, she said, telling the story of a former Pepsi employee turned Cox salesman who nearly cancelled his wedding date over the hotel’s plans to serve Coca-Cola. Now, when Cox books corporate events, “it’s really a mantra of ours that we hold those events at a Cox- served facility,” she said.
Teaching new employees Cox culture is easier than getting longtime Cox workers to change their behavior, Barnard said. “Many of the employees coming to work for us have come from competitive businesses… They say, ‘Yeah, well of course,'” she said: “Instilling that mindset in those of us who have been around for a while is actually the bigger challenge.”
Corporate attempts to influence employees aren’t new in American business, said Robert Sutton, who teaches institutional behavior at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Examples abound in the auto, airline, technology and, of course, soft drink industries, he said: “Talking to the Pepsi and Coke people, they do treat it like a religious zeal that I find completely irrational… It’s more tribal than rational.”
The effort can work if employees feel management treats them well, Sutton said. If a company historically has treated employees poorly, it might backfire, he said: “If [AT&T] -- which has gone through so many mergers and so many layoffs in my area -- if they started asking people to do that, I would think it’s just laughable.”
It has worked for Cox before, Barnard said: “Many of these tactics that we're using here in northern Virginia are the same things we did in Omaha,” where Cox competes with Qwest. “These are pretty tried & true, because if you followed what’s happened to Qwest in those markets, they're still in business, but barely so,” she said.
Cox doesn’t sanction employees who patronize competitors and “ultimately these are personal decisions,” Barnard said. But the company tries to frame its success in personal terms, she said: “When we talk about it… [we tell workers that] any time we lose a customer, that literally takes food away from your children or affects the ability for you to save for your children’s education.”