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