My Ordeal With Comcast's Customer Service

Last weekend, and again yesterday afternoon, I spent close to an hour on the telephone waiting for customer service from Comcast, the cable company for the village where I live north of Chicago—two hours, altogether. I have cable television, digital telephone, and high-speed internet with wireless service through Comcast. Many of my neighbors have defected to satellite service, but I have stuck with cable.

The ordeal of these past few days has severely tested my loyalty to Comcast, and I came away a very unhappy customer. I was asked repeatedly—both by recorded prompts and by customer-service agents speaking English as a not-quite second language—for my account number. I was transferred six or seven times each day, including twice in complete circles back to the original recorded greeting.

That isn't all. I was hung up on, automatically, after I had patiently listened to marketing pitches while on hold for five or ten minutes after being continually transferred. Finally, I was told that I needed a new Internet router (provided by Comcast under my contract), and then I was told that if the service technician found that I actually didn’t need a new router, I would be billed $49.95 for an unnecessary service call.

Arghhhh!

Now I don’t make a habit of using social media to slam companies by name, but yesterday afternoon I just had to vent. There’s a limit to anyone's patience, and mine was rapidly fading in the rear-view mirror. So I sent out messages on both Twitter and Facebook vividly recounting my travails. Comcast, you deserved this one.

Now, a day later and still without satisfaction, I wonder if Comcast's senior management has a clue how its customers regard its call-center service. If they do, why do they tolerate such a dysfunctional system?

Extrapolating from this experience, all of us can ask ourselves whether we have a clue how our own customers regard our products and service. On this, I will have to admit a shortcoming of my own. I tend to accept kudos at face value, instead of developing a robust evaluation process. 

Ultimately, any complaint about cumbersome and exasperating customer service reflects disappointment with employees, for it is employees that design and support the process that customers experience. That means a perception of low employee engagement. The employee disengagement translates into your frustration as a customer.

On an encouraging note, The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Comcast has created a new position of senior vice president for employee engagement of Comcast Cable, and has appointed Ron Phillips to the post as of October 1.

By my experience, Mr. Phillips certainly has his work cut out for him. Millions of customers doubtless wish him well, and I am guessing that thousands of Comcast employees do, too.

Comments

[ComcastCares]

I am sorry to hear of your poor experience. We would like to look into and also assist in making it right. Please email us at the address below.

Thank you!
Frank Eliason
Comcast
@ComcastCares on Twitter
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com

[Thomas J. Lee]

@ComcastCares on Twitter

My own situation is now historical. What you can do for everyone is to examine your call-center operations and your telephone-greeting and transfer system from the perspective of a customer. Look for redundant requests for the same information, the number of prompts and transfers, the use of unwelcome marketing pitches to the captive audience, confusing instructions, long waits regardless of call volume, poor English skills-- the list goes on.