Comcast Missed The Point!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Many mondo corporations wouldn’t have to spend gazillions on slick marketing hoo-ha if they actually provided good service. (What a concept!)
Comcast recently fired the service person who fell asleep on a customer’s couch and showed up on YouTube. Sure, that was very unprofessional of the sleepy technician, but Comcast completely missed the point. The reason he fell asleep was he was on hold for more than an hour with Comcast! The company has much bigger problems than a “bad” employee. It’s insane to expect anybody to sit on hold for over an hour. And, he wouldn’t have even been there if the Comcast routers and service had worked in the first place.
UPDATE (08/08/06): The local customer service reps did “research” and pulled the call records. Seems it was all my fault as I did, in fact, schedule the cut-off for the day he showed up. Of course, I volunteered from the start that I might have mis-read my calendar, but that as the customer, I should have been able to prevent the cut-off of my service.
The local rep’s exasperated response (after she repeatedly blamed me, the bad ol’ customer) was, “He had no way of knowing you were the customer. He had to do his job.” Um, okay, so I was a burglar, wearing flip-flops and ratty shorts, standing in the garage and packing boxes in my car??? And, the job of the technician is ______??? Gee, I dunno - maybe something like customer service??? Suffice to say, DirectTV is on the roof as I type this - and I’m switching to Qwest DSL on Friday. (More on all this in another post - I actually had a very positive service experience with an individual at Qwest.)
Then when the fella showed up at the new house a couple of days later to install the service, he left a trail of cable bits, wires, screws, and plaster dust. He also slammed down his metal clipboard on my nice wooden desk; dragged cable through the rose bushes, breaking branches; and stomped on my just-cleaned carpet with dusty workboots - all before I could get a word (or “eek”) out.
Do I even need to mention I can’t make heads or tails of the most recent bill? Nahhh…you’re way ahead of me on that one, aren’t you?
The bottom line: Comcast has a huge marketing problem - and it has nothing to do with direct mail, sloganeering or advertising. Broken processes which create lousy service - that’s the root marketing issue. You can talk sizzle all day, but people eventually expect the steak (and we don’t expect the chef to leave our kitchen in a mess either.)
(The only reason I still have Comcast Internet access is Qwest didn’t want my money.)
I’m toddlin’ off now to write another letter to the Comcast CEO. UPDATE: Didn’t work; the internal (and very broken) process is such that he (or somebody who actually cares about things like customers) never read it. So, even I know when to call it a day. After all, “Living well is the best revenge.” And, I’ve got to think I’ve got a much better life than a Comcast cubicle-imprisoned service rep. All that bad lighting, all that terrible air, and all those unhappy customers…yikes!
More: (Via Customersarealways) Lisa from Comcast Sparkles! Hmmm…could be she doesn’t know any better than to do a good job! By golly, her manager needs to talk to her! 
(Lisa’s a young energetic woman, if that’s her photo on the blog post.)
Tags: Comcast,customer service, marketing, marketing troubleshooting
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July 11th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
Fun Times With Comcast…
Thank God I never signed up with Comcast. Mary Schmidt shares with us a couple incidents with the company that has me thinking that this is another company that will be saying Bye Bye soon. I did a blogsearch for……
July 12th, 2006 at 7:56 am
Mary, I come to this blog by way of Maria Palma (thanks Maria!), and I certainly empathize with your experience with your cable company. I’m in the service business, and believe me these stories make me cringe. The big problem is the use of outside contractors - you cannot train them in the ways of proper customer service in the same way you could with an internal employee, so there is a much higher risk of the kind of thing you experienced. I don’t like using them unless we have to, and if we do, we make sure that they don’t get paid if we find out they did a job like yours. We don’t wait for the customer to call either; we proactively contact every person to get a first-hand account of the quality of the service. Now as for those wait times and phone runarounds……(let’s just say that’s cringe inducing too). Thanks Mary for keeping us honest!
July 12th, 2006 at 9:14 am
Starbucker,
A big part of my background is the development, packaging, and delivery of IT support services, including software technical call centers. So, yes, I agree it’s a terrific challenge managing contractors. And, it’s not just the subs that can throw a spanner in the works. Problems with internal processes such as billing, problem escalation and technical infrastructure - such as those of Comcast, Qwest and Verizon - compound the problem.
Customers would be much more understanding of all the snafus (after all, most of us are reasonable and make mistakes too) - IF the companies treated us with some basic respect. That’s a fundamental cultural issue that seems insurmountable for companies in telecom and communications (and airlines). They still have the embedded beliefs and operating structure of monopolies, even after decades of deregulation and wild & wooly competition from resellers, upstarts, and niche players.
I fully expect to get a form letter quoting “our policies do not allow…” “we value your business” and perhaps a $10 “courtesy” credit back from Comcast. But, we’ll see. All of which will make me roll my eyes and renew my resolve to finally research alternatives and make a switch.
July 12th, 2006 at 9:35 am
Dell’s New Hell and other ruminations…
Poor Dell. Damned if they don’t and Damned when they do. I’m joining the voices who want to give Dell a break, and let them get their feet under them in the blogosphere. They deserved to be damned when they…
July 12th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Comcast - a tale of poor customer service and screwed up management decisions…
So a guy has problems with his cable modem and spends time in Comcast’s online customer service hell (he also happens to be the biggest champion for the movie snakes on a plane, even though the moviemakers newer acknowledged that)…….
July 12th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
I agree Mary - respect is key. We preach about making lemonade out of lemons all the time. It’s really true - a customer with a service snafu who gets their problem resolved satisfactorily (and with a smile to boot) is much more likely to be a long term customer than someone we never hear from. Sooner or later, the big companies will get it. I’m just sorry we have to wait! I’ll be curious to hear about your response letter (if you get one). Thanks.
July 13th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Mary - You are the reason comics like John Stewart will always have material.
My personal belief is that as long as CEO’s, CMO’s, Chairmem of Boards, and other “company men” get paid “X” times more than level 1 or 2 or 3 laborers - companies like Comcast will always say one thing and do another.
They say “we care” but in reality they don’t. It’s nothing new but that is what makes it so damn sad.
July 31st, 2006 at 10:02 am
[…] But, none of us can truly “shame” a company. It’s a souless, faceless entity, with no single point of accountability. Further, the service people within bad companies are usually far more unhappy than us customers (they’re having to talk to hundreds of people that are just as unhappy as me or you.) As I’ve noted previously, the companies totally miss the point and respond in knee-jerk fashion – firing the symptom rather than treating the problem. […]
August 17th, 2006 at 7:41 am
[…] (Hmmm…mebbe Comcast should recruit him!) […]
September 6th, 2006 at 10:31 am
[…] For example, it would have been very simple for Comcast to keep my business. The service rep could have said something like, “Wow! Well, that was really stupid of us. That must have been awful for you. Here’s what I can do for you – I’m giving you a free month of service and the special ‘new customer’ Internet rate for another six months.” Then, that hand-signed note from the CEO’s office telling me how much they appreciate my business and “sorry for the inconvenience” would have been appropriate and appreciated. As it is, the card just made me laugh, particularly since it arrived after I cancelled all services. […]
September 21st, 2006 at 8:09 am
[…] Related Posts: Service Star: Ian at Verizon Wireless Service Star: Joan Cok, UNM CE The Rant Factor or Who Sucks Less? Shaming Companies Into Good Service. (Can’t be done.) Comcast Missed the Point! Home Depot’s Real Problem People Who Need People Customers – Service Vs. Processing […]
November 12th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
Quit your whining, you made a mistake, suck it up. Those contractors get paid by the job, not by the hour, so he went to your house to do his job to make money….and if he left doing what you wanted, he would have made zero dollars. Don’t blame Comcast for your mistake and don’t expect them to kiss your behind when you are at fault. There are plenty of places in this world that offer internet for free, so you could have gone somewhere rather than come on here and tell your pathetic story.
November 13th, 2006 at 7:17 am
Wow, “N.P.” you need to work on those anger issues. Did your team by any chance lose the mid-term election?
In any event, having worked on the other side and hired subs to provide service - I can tell you - their job is to provide customer service. The customer is - well - the customer and their service requests are the ones that count. Further, a company in entering a contract to provide service in return for money should, in fact, provide that service.
The root cause of the problem is poor process and training on the part of Comcast. Sure, I feel for the subs, but I am the customer, not them.
You’ve missed the point of my blog (and it is - ahem - my blog) - I tell my “pathetic” stories as examples of what my clients should and shouldn’t do - as well as in the hopes that the BCCs (Big Clueless Companies) get a clue.
As for offering Internet for free? What part of the world do you live in? If you’re talking wireless - this would have necessitated me going and upgrading my computer to wireless and then dragging it to a wi-fi cafe. Not the best use of my money and time, particularly in the middle of a move and for a few hours of connectivity. As it was, I called my clients and reset their expectations re deliverables (another little thing Comcast doesn’t do in their service delivery.)
November 13th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
[…] I recently got the following comment, from “N.P.” to one of my posts re BCC (Big Clueless Company) Comcast: Quit your whining, you made a mistake, suck it up. Those contractors get paid by the job, not by the hour, so he went to your house to do his job to make money….and if he left doing what you wanted, he would have made zero dollars. Don’t blame Comcast for your mistake and don’t expect them to kiss your behind when you are at fault. […]
November 13th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
I was similarly chastised for my criticisms of a mall store in a recent post. The gist being that I was too demanding, asking the store to provide things it didn’t need to do. Out of scope and out of line I was, they said.
When the point was simply that every company needs to remember that sometimes they only get one chance at a customer, and they have to make it count. If they care about the lifetime value of the customer.
If they don’t we really can’t help them, can we?
November 13th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
Susan,
Yes I remember your post. One wonders what “N.P.” and your chastiser does when they get bad service. Something tells me they don’t thank the company for the opportunity to give it money in return for disrespect and poor to non-existent service.
November 30th, 2006 at 8:08 am
[…] The Duh! Bottom Line: If companies thought of customers as relationships versus one-time “wham bam” transactions, I (and many others) wouldn’t be writing about Big Clueless Companies such as Comcast, Home Depot, and Cingular. Treating us with a litlle respect could be the start of a long mutually beneficial relationship. So, here’s a very quick sanity check for anybody who has to deal with customers (or clients): 1. Would I say that to their face? 2. Would I treat a friend this way? 3. Would I treat a stranger on the street this way? 4. Do I feel good about myself (forget your company, career or salary for a second) in dealing with customers? 5. Would my parents be proud of the way I treat customers? 6. Am I doing things “the right way” or am I doing the “right thing?” (Rick is standing there watching the love of his life fly away – he’s doing the “right thing” even though it’s a heap of trouble.) […]
December 6th, 2006 at 10:07 am
[…] Seems many companies (of all sizes) operate as if we, the customers, should feel privileged to pay them ever increasing amounts for ever decreasing quality and service – or in some cases for absolutely nothing. It’s somehow our job to keep them in business, rather they deserve it or not. I wish I could operate like – say – Comcast. Not deliver the service and still expect to get paid (and be incredibily rude as well). But, my clients are so unreasonable – they actually expect me to deliver value for their hard-earned money. […]
December 18th, 2006 at 8:52 am
[…] Too bad the head honchos of BCCs (Big Clueless Companies) such as Home Depot, Comcast, and MBNA don’t hang with Larry. They could learn a thing or two. […]
November 30th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Here is a short rant about how poor Comcast is; when I ordered wireless Internet I was told the local Comcast service office was closed for remodeling so there was no way to get the necessary equipment to start up my Internet service.I had to order it direct from their corporate customer service center. 10 phones call and 5-1/2 weeks later I finally received the equipment, when I was told it would ship in 48 hours. Once received it took litertally an entire day to get it working right, with hours of waiting and talking to their “un-tech” center.
Last night I cancelled the service after having it less than 2 months. Why? I logged onto nfl.com to see the online score and stat tracker of the Packers vs. Cowboys game and within minutes they shut the service down… no more Internet for the rest of the night. So much for voice of the customer and their petty battle with the NFL is ridiculous.Good by Comcast and just disappear. Fiberoptics will kill them, and they won’t be missed!