Company Town : Cable Industry Acts to Improve Customer Satisfaction : Television: $10-million effort comes as phone companies prepare to offer duplicate services.

The cable industry is promising to compensate customers for late or missed service calls as part of a broad image-improvement effort announced Thursday.

Starting March 1, customers will get $20 for missed or late calls. Prospective customers will receive free cable installation if a technician misses or is late for an appointment.

Although the guarantees are voluntary, virtually all of the nation’s 11,000 cable systems have pledged to provide them, said Decker Anstrom, president of the National Cable Television Assn., which spearheaded the plan. Those 11,000 systems serve about 59 million people.

The customer service initiative, announced at an industry convention in Anaheim, is designed to close “a credibility gap” with consumers, Anstrom said. Poor service was one of the factors that prompted Congress to re-regulate the industry in 1992.

“The most corrosive thing for our industry is wounding by anecdote,” Anstrom said.

He said many cable systems have improved their service but that what sticks in people’s minds are the horror stories. “Everybody has a story about a cable company,” Anstrom said.

The service guarantees don’t apply in the event of natural disasters, severe weather or labor disputes.

The move is part of a larger industry effort to have consumers think of cable television when they think of telecommunications products and services.

The $10-million effort comes as cable and telephone companies are racing to get into each other’s businesses and as cable faces formidable competition from new high-powered satellites that allow people to receive an array of programs using a small receiver.

The initiative will focus on promoting the ways in which advances in cable technology can change customers’ lives, and on how cable’s role in connecting schools and producing programs for classroom use will improve the nation’s educational system.

The industry also plans to monitor system compliance with the customer service guarantees, educational efforts and other aspects of the program, Anstrom said.