Comcast CEO and King of Kabletown Brian Roberts may think that dealing with more than a billion customer interactions each year is an acceptable excuse for his company’s poor customer service reputation, but the guy about to take the reins at Time Warner Cable sees things a little differently (or at least that’s what he claims to believe).

Earlier this week, Time Warner Cable’s incoming CEO Rob Marcus said that a top priority of his will be “Putting the customer at the center of everything we do” and that “the best customer service is when the customers don’t need to contact us at all for service.”

While we agree with Marcus’s statement, we don’t hold out much hope. After all, he’s been with the company since 2005 and has been its President and Chief Operating Officer for three years and was the Chief Financial Officer before that.

Unless outgoing CEO Glenn Britt was holding him back all this time from making sweeping systemic changes that would improve customer service, we’re just expecting more of the same under the direction of Marcus.

Time Warner Cable has a long way to go before anyone starts praising its customer service. The easiest way to anger a crowd of New Yorkers isn’t to walk around Times Square with a Celtics jersey, Red Sox cap while shouting about how great Tom Brady is. No, all you have to do is say the phrase, “So I called Time Warner Cable last night…” and you will immediately be drowning in a sea of commiseration.

And the stats back this sentiment up, with TWC being at or near the bottom of the American Customer Satisfaction Index results for its cable TV service, its Internet service, and home phone service.

Of course, Marcus may now feel free to change the customer service model because he probably won’t be CEO for long, what with his company the subject of numerous takeover rumors.

“I want to make absolutely clear, our management team is completely focused on running Time Warner Cable for the long haul,” Marcus said, though we wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t do too much redecorating of the CEO’s office when he takes over next month.

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