America's Worst Customer Service Providers Named and Shamed

Comcast gets the dubious honour of ranking first in a list of US companies that provide a poor customer service.

To coincide with their "Customer Service Hall of Fame", 24/7 Wall St. has this week also released their "Customer Service Hall of Shame", which names the US companies that are rated the worst for customer service according to their annual collaborative study with research group Zogby Analytics.

Over 1,500 US adults where polled for the study and they were asked if the service at 151 of the country's best-known companies, across 15 industries, was "excellent", "good", "fair" or "poor".

108 companies had at least 500 valid responses and the companies with fewer valid responses were not considered for either the Customer Service Hall of Fame or the Customer Service Hall of Shame.

Broadcasting and cable company Comcast topped the "poor" list for the second year running - a dubious honour.

SEE ALSO: Comcast Goes Into Battle Against Torrent of Abominable Customer Experiences

Comcast wasn"t the only cable, satellite or wireless provider in the list, as the top 10 of worst companies for customer service this year also included DirectTV (2nd), Dish Network (5th), AT&T (6th), AT&T U-verse (7th) and Verizon (9th).

Customer service and experience expert Shep Hyken told 24/7 Wall St. that cable companies in particular may suffer from a lack of urgency to improve the quality of their customer interactions. Because of this, these companies have earned a reputation for terrible customer experiences unique to the industry.

He explained: "When you want to have cable installed, you have to take a half a day off of work, and you have to hope the cable guy shows up."

He also noted that if Apple, or one of the companies that make up this year's Customer Service Hall of Fame were in the cable business, customer service would improve.

The remaining companies rounding out the top 10 for 2015 were Bank of America - Bank (3rd), Bank of America - Credit Card Company (4th), AOL (8th) and T-Mobile (10th).

Many of the companies have appeared in the list before and both Comcast and Bank of America have been bottom-ranked for customer service for seven years in a row.