Thursday, August 27, 2009

Customer Service: Be Good When You’re Big

Comcast was a thorn in my side from its first intrusion a decade ago. I needed its high bandwidth like I needed electricity and water. Back then, Comcast was the only game in town, so I went with Comcast.

Their monopoly reigned for years and the service ups and downs were legend. Once I had no reliable service for a month. Finally, I got relief by complaining to the utility commissioner. He got involved only because that particular problem featured a cable that was supposed to have been buried, but which snaked its orange way across my yard for weeks. The rest of my dozens of complaints were a crap shoot.

If you have Comcast, you know this story all too well: long waits to talk to a customer service person; dropped phone calls; distant appointments; four-hour windows in which you need to take off work and wait, followed by technicians who don’t fix the problem, or worse, technicians who don’t even show up. I had to pay my bill on time every month, of course. “You need us more than we need you” -- that was the Comcast attitude. It still is the attitude in areas where Comcast remains a monopoly. Except now there's FIOS -- and along with FIOS comes a new Comcast … a Comcast that “cares.”

How dumb do you think we are?

Frank Eliason on Twitter is one big whoop to me. Ditto the East Division Inside Sales Manager, who sent me a letter yesterday, telling me that his "#1 job is to help small businesses" like mine. Hey, Dave. I’ve got FIOS and I’m never going back. And anybody who’s ever had Comcast will leave as soon as they possibly can – permanently.

My ten closest friends and family loathe you, Comcast. I’ve talked to dozens of others over the years who burn with the same hot rage at the mention of your name. There’s a lesson here and it’s so simple it’s embarrassing. Don’t start playing nice when times get tough, because customers not only remember, they resent.

Do be good when you’re big, even if you don’t have to. Because, actually, you do have to.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

2 comments:

ComcastCares1 said...

I am sorry to learn that we have lost you as our customer.

We are working really hard to improve the service we provide to our customers. We have made improvements to provide better service to our customers. This includes more staffing, shorter appointment windows, better equipment to get the job done and many more. To read more about our customer care improvements please visit the following URL: http://www.comcast.com/Corporate/Customers/customercare.html

Please know that if you ever decide to come back as, please know that we are here to help.

Best regards,

Mark Casem
Comcast Corp.
National Customer Operations
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com

Unknown said...

Thank you for responding, Mark. Your social media efforts are definitely on the right track.