I haven’t ranted for a while. Actually life has been pretty great lately. I have a new
home, a new job, and the people I work with are great! The fact that I live in the
mountains in Colorado makes for a pretty choice existence as well. All in all there’s
really not much in the area of things that have been irritating me. Then I called
Comcast.
If ever there was a customer service catastrophe it would be Comcast. I have never in
my life had such an annoying experience as has been given to me when moving from one home
to another. I’ve had to do it twice with Comcast. As a reward for these experiences
they even charged me $50.00 for each move! Seriously!
My first experience in moving was rather interesting. I had transferred services from
Castle Rock to Colorado Springs. All went well and fine until I started getting calls
from a collection agency. I didn’t owe anyone any money so I was a little confused about
the calls. They told me that I needed to return the Internet router I used when I had
service with Comcast. The only problem was, I was still using it!
Someone, somewhere within Comcast had managed to press a wrong button. They sent a
request to an external collection agency to return the modem I was using with my Comcast
service. I understand errors can happen so I set out to call and straighten the whole
matter out. After going through the automated system, giving my personal information, I
was finally connected with a customer service rep who promptly asked me the identical
information. They couldn’t help me so I was connected to three other people who also
asked me the identical information with each transfer. You would think someone would
have written it down!
That process was repeated over the next 12 months. I would call. I would be transferred
to multiple people, and I would have to repeat my personal information with each
transfer. I would finally find a person who said they could fix the problem only to find
out later they had not. Every couple of months I would call into Comcast and get a
promise that this was all a mistake and it was corrected.
When it finally got to a point that the collection agency would call my work, my home,
send emails, nasty letters threatening collections, etc., I gave up. I took the router
to the local Comcast customer service center. I was met with a very pleasant customer
service professional, who, ironically, spoke English (none of the providers on the phone
had mastered the language) and who was more than happy to take the return of the router
in question. I asked for a receipt for the equipment, and they promptly provided it. I
then asked him to cancel my Internet service. After all…they had the router I needed to
use the service. Why would I keep paying?
The gentleman was confused. I was returning a router that was under collections. I
obviously didn’t need it. So why would I want to cancel my service? Well, I explained to
him, I was still using the router, and paying for it. But now that Comcast wanted it
back, I couldn’t use the service, and therefore would not be paying for it. It took a
moment but he caught onto the error. He then informed me I didn’t need to cancel, and he
would correct the issue. I told him never mind. I had made many attempts and I was
done!
Turn the clock forward another year. I was moving from Colorado Springs to Monument. I
didn’t want to use Comcast, but it turned out that I couldn’t get any other provider in
the home in Monument. Therefore I only had Comcast as a service option. Over the next
year, other than some minor service issues, all things worked out fine. Then I had to
move.
When I moved, Comcast cancelled my old account, and then started a new one. This
presented some problems with their online services. To correct this problem I embarked
on a Comcast customer service conundrum that overshadowed even the issue with the router.
I again had to call multiple times, speaking with multiple people, who by all accounts
had never mastered the English language. It was obviously not their first language,
their second, or third for that matter. This makes it very difficult to communicate.
During one two hour session, I was connected with nine customer service professionals and
repeated my personal information no fewer than 18 times. With each transfer I spoke to a
computer, and then a person. There has to be a better system. At one point I was so
frustrated that I told the poor person on the phone how worthless their support was and
hung up. Not one minute later, my DVR was reset and all my recorded programs, and
scheduled recordings were erased. I have no doubt in retaliation to my outburst. It
took me another week to calm down enough to make a final attempt.
I finally decided to use their online service which at least meant that I could read and
write my responses. I’m not saying the understanding was much better, but at least I
could correct the missed spellings, and poor grammar. This made it a lot easier than if I
was on the phone. Either way they were finally able to understand what I needed, and
updated my online account with my current service. But it shouldn’t have been that hard.
It turns out this is a known issue with Comcast. You would think they would have
workarounds and process for “known issues.”
So with that I will offer some advice to Comcast. Move your customer service to an
English speaking country: Preferably the United States. I heard a rumor that jobs are
moving back to the U.S. Let’s add these to the list, shall we? I’m not saying that
people in Paraguay shouldn’t have jobs. I’m just saying they should be jobs that support
Paraguay. I’m sure that if they had to call me to get support they would be equally
frustrated. It’s not fair to them, and it’s definitely not fair to the person paying you
$200.00 per month for T.V. and Internet service.
The next thing I would offer is if you can’t get a system that only requires a customer
to enter their personal information once, then you need a new system. I worked in
customer service for five years for an Insurance company that would threaten to fire us
if we even THOUGTH about doing a blind transfer. And if you didn’t write the persons
information down when you had them on the call that meant very little in the annual
stocking of raises. A customer should never, or any reason, what-so-ever have to repeat
their information to multiple representatives. It makes them feel like their not
important. You know why? Because it’s unprofessional. Worse than that, it’s rude!
So Comcast, if you seriously want to improve customer service, take my advice. Look at
it from the customer’s perspective. They’re paying you for a service. They don’t
exactly have to pay you. Unlike me, most have other options. Perhaps if you focused on
their needs, rather than your investors, you might increase your market share. Amazon,
Apple, and Google didn’t get successful by focusing on their investor. They did it by
focusing on their customer. Why not give it a try?