Cox vs. Brinks: The cost of incompetence

Companies that don't invest in hiring, training, and supervising capable employees often pay a big price on the back end. Consider this update on the battle royal between Cox and Brinks. (Read previous post here.)

What happened?

A third technician (first one was from Cox, second one was from Brinks) came to the house to restore my home phone service. Nate was a Cox sub-contractor, so in a sense he represented a third company. He took a quick look at my system and told me the biggest problem was the system wasn't set up correctly. Nate was very professional and wouldn't accuse the other two technicians of not knowing how to do their jobs. All he said was, "I'm here now and I can fix this."  Everything was up and running after about 30 minutes.  Thanks, Nate!

The Cost of Incompetence

Let's look at the cost Cox Communications paid for not sending a competent employee to the house the first time:

1. Initial installation.  ~ 2 hours
2. Return trip to fix problems with house alarm caused during installation.  ~2 hours
3. Repair trip six months later, caused in part due to poor installation.  ~ 1.5 hours
4. Call center rep time to schedule repeat visits. ~ 30 minutes.
5. 2nd repair trip. ~ 30 minutes.
6. Total time: 6.5 hours

According to Nate's diagnosis, the problem would not have happened had the system been installed correctly the first time. This problem effectively cost Cox 4.5 hours of wasted time. Multiply this by the many customers who have certainly faced similar problems and Cox has a huge opportunity to improve customer satisfaction and simultaneously reduce service costs.