This is just very typical of Cox's brand of "customer service". Any customer complaints about this chronic program guide problem results always in Cox automatically blaming the "other guy" (ie, the networks they contract with).
It apparently hasn't ever occurred to anyone at the Cox executive management level that communication and negotiation with their network/content providers to require accurate transmittal of program information, on a consistent basis, SHOULD be a core contract requirement.
After all, we Cox customers pay Cox for an accurate, timely, program guide (but receive one which we can never depend on) and Cox happily takes our money, but they fail to hold their content providers accountable on the other side for accurate content description when they pay out our money for the programs.
The fact that Cox has been tinkering/working on their television program guide, off and on for the past 3-4 years, is a definite indicator that they know they have major problems with it, but they refuse to admit it publicly, and they seem unwilling to invest the kind of time, money, and talent that are required to produce a quality, reliable, program guide for us, their paying cable TV customers.
I agree that the Cox program guide problem is growing increasingly worse.
In my local area (Tulsa) for the past 48 hours, I have had NO TV program guide available at all except for the current day's listings. It's very frustrating - and time-consuming - to have to go to the computer, to pull up each network website one by one, and to review their program listings in order to program my Cox DVR.
I'll now get on the telephone this morning, and after suffering through the misery of Cox's "Automated Annie" answering system, and then going through their uber-fascist, customer identification process once again when a live person finally answers my call, eventually, I will be allowed to report this latest program guide problem to a Cox technical support person.
Depending on whom I am allowed to speak with today and their level of knowledge and awareness of what is really going on at Cox with the program guide, I will then be instructed by the tech support person to unplug everything, to re-plug everything, and to turn everything back on, and then - maybe - I'll have a good program guide which projects somewhere from 4-7 days into the future (Cox's standard) . . . or maybe I won't. Of course, I've already tried all of these trouble-shooting efforts, every day for the past three days, before ever calling Cox - but that won't make any difference to them.
Once I'm finished with the awkward, lengthy, and stressful process of reaching out to Cox to report my latest program guide problem, I'll then request a transfer to someone in the Cox billing department, where I will ask for a credit on my bill for the past three days, due to the absence of any kind of program guide at all, except for the current 24-hour period. A few dollars credit will be issued to my bill, and my direct "customer service" contact with Cox Communications will end - until the next time.
I find it laughable that Cox calls themselves a "COMMUNICATIONS" company.
Clearly Cox's ONLY goal is profit - and as long as we Cox customers continue to pay them top dollar for their brand of unreliable, low-level, customer service, they win . . . and we lose. There's not a thing wrong with making a profit - but insulting and lying to one's own customers, and always blaming "the other guy" for one's own failure to deliver on promised services, in order to make that profit, are very quickly becoming business models which Americans consumers are simply no longer willing to tolerate.
