Fortune magazine has an Q&A with CEO Brian “Bad Install” Roberts in which he expresses his hope that Comcast’s reputation for horrific customer service isn’t “universal”:
Q: As a CEO you must be aware of your company’s horrific reputation regarding customer service. How do you plan on improving it? — Eric Sodee, Arlington, VA.
A: I hope that reputation is not universal, and we are working very hard to improve where we have made past mistakes. We do 250 million phone calls a year between orders and services, and, inevitably, with that many calls, you are going to have failures. We have added 11,000 technical and customer-care employees just in the past 18 months. And we are beginning to call customers before and after service appointments to make sure we did the work properly. It is a major goal to continue to improve.
Is Comcast’s bad reputation universal?
If you’ll allow me to get a little personal for a moment, let me tell you that I once went to dinner at a (fairly expensive) restaurant where the waitress never took my order. She came to the table, asked my date what he wanted, took his order and left. All attempts to politely flag the waitress down were in vain. Eventually she brought my date’s order. She dropped it on the table and walked away as both of us were trying to ask her why I wasn’t allowed to eat.
It was so creepy and awkward that my date just gave me half of his food rather than try to talk to her. Eventually she came back to slam the check down on the table before she walked away without a word. To this day, I have no idea why she wouldn’t let me order. I’ve always sort of assumed that her pet had just died or that someone had just broken up with her. Maybe I look like some girl she hated in high school.
That was the second worst customer service I’ve ever experienced, Mr. Roberts. Guess what the first was.
Just sayin’.
Comcast CEO: Investors are wrong about us [Fortune]
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I still Comcast.
I wish I knew when Wide Open West was finally going to be available in my western Chicago suburb. I would start a celebratory countdown.
@reykjavik: Bwah! So true. I was judging in my head (and not just because her date had testes–WHO lets service like that slide?) and trying not to post: SERIOUSLY, why did you not walk out? Or call the manager? Or tell your date you wanted your own damn meal!?
Interestingly enough, I’ve always had a good experience with Comcast Internet. Speeds have always been great (for the US, anyways), and I seldom have any downtime.
The digital TV is a different story. The Interface on the cable box is absolutely horrendous. I don’t know how anyone could have thought that was a releasable product.
Anyways, my customer service experience has been pleasing as well. I recently moved my service from one city to another, with no problems. Didn’t have to wait long, no billing snafus, everything went as planned. At my new location, I signed up for the triple play (internet, tv, and phone), and they were running a promotion, which earned me a Nintendo DS. After calling up to ask for my DS, they informed me that the promotion was for new customers and online orders only. A quick email to a comcast executive email address I found on Consumerist, and I had a $169 credit in my account.
Just this week, my girlfriend placed a christmas cactus on our set-top box and watered it. The water ran through, and into the cable box, which fried. I called up Comcast, added Equipment Insurance to my account, then drove right over to the Comcast Office. They replaced it no questions asked, they even upgraded it to better hardware.
The only things that leave me wanting are the set-top box software, needing a dedicated IP for HOME service, faster (mostly just upload) speeds, and lower prices.
I feel Comcast has received a bad rap at times. I just wanted to share my experiences.
It’s not the “failures”, Mr. Robert, which implies that your employees tried to do right, but didn’t quite make it.
It is knowing (as a customer) that your company will only ever pledge to do the right thing when you are called out in a public forum or in an interview such as the one above. It is knowing that if you think you won’t get caught, you will not treat your customers fairly. It is knowing that Comcast will always find a way to do what is easiest and cheapest, but not what is right or best for the customer.
It is the complete lies, the utter incompetence, and the blatant contempt your employees evinces to your customer base.
I know that you may not know the difference between those concepts, but if you did, you would know why Comcast has such a lousy reputation.
@FunPaul:
That’s bad, but how about this:
Over the course of the summer, the internet kept going down. The service guy would eventually come out, check the wires outside (but only after half a dozen calls or so each time; hang ups; rude customer service reps; and once, a foreign guy who didn’t want to speak to me about technical matters because I am a woman; and so on). They never found anything. Ever. They came or 5 or 6 times. They cancelled appointments (well, the didn’t show up – they never actually told us they weren’t coming), and still, nothing. But, while they have you on the phone, and in spite of the fact that the service we’re paying for doesn’t work, would we be interested in a sports package on Comcast cable? No? How about other premium services such as…?
So in between hard up-selling and telling us that the service guy should have called to say he wasn’t coming and were we sure we were really home, we’d ask: could it be the modem? It seems awfully hot. No, the modem was fine. Modems are always really hot. Well, could we exchange the modem anyway, you know, for fun? No, they would not exchange the old modem back since it was not the issue, & by the way, would you like to consider a movie tier?
Eventually (somewhere between a few hours and a day), even without fixing anything the internet would come back up for a while, Comcast would lie and weasel a way around giving credit (“We don’t have any previous record of an issue” “It wasn’t out long enough”), and everything would work until the next time.
Finally, about the 6th-or-so time a service guy came out, he actually came to the front door. He said the wiring was fine & could he look at our modem? Yes! s-u-c-c-e-s-s! So he went in, looked at it, & came back out of the room holding the modem and said “”Huh. I thought they recalled these due to these things smoking and catching fire”. Didn’t know there were any left in service. I’ll get you a new one”.
Uh… yeah. So, we don’t have Comcast anymore. And we will never have Comcast again. And we were morons for putting up with it for so long, but we didn’t have many choices until the phone company extended DSL to our neighborhood. We have DirecTV for cable and they are polite and nice on the phone if we have an issue, which is rare. And they cost less. And they have a ton more children’s programming.
I’ve just (in the last month) gotten Comcast again after a year without them. Through every phase, they have screwed up; however this time around, their customer service has at least been unfailingly polite. So I guess they’re getting better.
Meg, I hope that restaurant experience happened when you were a mere girl, and now that you’re older, you now know that the correct thing for your date to do would have been to stand up and find the manager when the one meal arrived (if not sooner), make a complaint, and then leave the restaurant if your problem wasn’t immediately dealt with.
The same applies to crappy Comcast service. Cable isn’t a life necessity. Once you’ve been abused enough by the cable company, cancel your service, making sure (through your credit card or local representative or whatever) that you are not overcharged.
Let’s play “Fun with numbers”…
This guy makes $13.9 million dollars per year. Then (according to Yahoo Finance) helps himself to another 19 million in stock. This works out to…Sweet Jesus, $3,858 an hour. Do all of you people that are complaining really believe that he gives two shits what you think ? I mean,are you really that gullible ?
As others have mentioned, if you live in the Chicago suburbs, and have the option, get WOW (Wide Open West) if possible. It’s not often that I have ever been as impressed with a company as I have been with WOW. All services I requested were fulfilled quickly, and they have always given me no more than a 2 hour window for service. Last week, I had one of their people coming out between 10am and noon to set me up with an HD box, and when he came at 11:30am he apologized for being late! I almost hope that this company doesn’t get too big, as their service has been excellent!
@savvy999: You sir/maam, win. That was hilarious.
Dear Comcast, you guys suck and blow.
My parents internet, cable, and land line go out routinely. They have comcast. When they first started having problems, they would call the help line. The representative either spoke english as an eighth language or would suffer from what i like to call “marble mouth”
ONe summer three guys came to fix my parents service after 20 phone calls (literally). The first said he showed up and no-one was home. That’s funny, because there were nine people over at the house including a home-care nurse for my mother and me, waiting for the repair guy. My mother has a broken back and WANTED INTERNET so i was there. The second guy watched football with my father. He did not fix anything. The third guy “fixed” the problem. He told us the internet wouldn’t work becuase we had “gotten water on the tubes”. My parents have comcast highspeed networked wireless, so obviously that guy hadn’t solved the problem. Today they still have really sketchy service and the slowest “high speed” internet in the world. Their only choice is comcast…so they pay for it.
I took the other way out. We do not have internet, cable, or a land-line at my place until someone other than comcast can provide service.
And this post? This post is being done on Genuine Uncapped (and i DO mean uncapped) surewest wireless.
6 Terabytes a month baby. It’s not illegal but if you’re asking, you’re one of them.
Comcast needs to die.
If you have to say: “I hope that reputation is not universal” then you have a problem.
It looks like that waitress was a Comcast customer and recognized Mr. Roberts. If that was the case she should also have billed him for the meal he did not receive.
I believe I have had one of the top 10 worst experiences anyone had ever had with comcast (truly a feat). Only a matter of time before Dish has on demand.
I hate to break to you all but Comcast does have happy customers, so the thought that the “horrific reputation” is universal is not correct. @Zenbenny: Dish will never have True On Demand… their technology won’t allow it. You have to have the direct line connection.
To those who blame Comcast for not being able to watch a specific game – Try the programmers. Comcast doesn’t make up the programming, the programmers do. Also, there are things like syndication rights which give exclusive rights for certain programs to certain networks. This is most often seen with sports. Also, professional sports franchises typically do not allow their game to be aired within a certain radius of the arena/field unless the game is sold out. Be sure that your blame is directed to right folks, as easy as it is to blame the big bad corporation. I know that everyone thinks they should be able to get every channel or program they want for free or very little, but if thats how it worked I am sure that the quality of the program would be horrible and the picture quality would be even worse, if it even worked. Thats all I’m saying.
50 bucks says I am accused of being an employee of Comcast, since anyone that speaks out in favor of them “has to be an employee.” I will tell you that I am not. I understand how businesses work, I understand how the cable industry works, and I have never had a bad experience as a customer with Comcast. You are all so predictable.
I was moving and canceling service and I called Comcast to have them come pick up their modem. I asked them if I could simply mail it too the distribution center but that was not an option so I reluctantly agreed to wait around for 3 hours for them to come. Well, after telling me to wait an additional two hours, they never showed up and I was forced to reschedule. The second time they were supposed to come, they still never showed up. Both times I called them repeatedly while I waited. But there is no way to communicate to the service people to find out if they can actually make it to your home. Well, I was moving the next day and after many calls they eventually admitted to me that I could drive it to the center, an hour out of my way. I happened to complain about the whole thing to my apartment manager and he said that people always left it in the office because a Comcast tech comes out about once a month for service and also picks them up. If they had a little bit better communication they would have known this and could have told me this in the first place instead of making me waste two evenings and a lot of cellphone minutes!
@savvy999: That’s almost as funny as the article and equally true. Well said!
@MPHinPgh: “And if you really want to show you intend to improve things, give your employees the ability to effect change (the lack of that ability is likely at the root of their apathy), and hold your employees accountable for satisfying customers. Your metrics should not be calls per hour, but something more like “complaints per customer”.”
I have only one complaint with that. Basing a metric on complaints per customer is skewed unless you drop the highest complainers. Some people believe complaining early and without warrant will resolve things quicker (probably based on past experience.)
Otherwise, well said. I worked for comcast briefly for a dim period of my life, and it was such a soul-sucking experience I still wince when thinking about it. I can only compare it to working for McDonalds, only instead of greasy fries it’s television and internet, and instead of well documented efficiencies and processes it’s Comcast.
I guess I’m one of the minority who overall are satisfied with Comcast. I can’t say I am *crazy* about them, but their Internet works better than the DSL we used to have, and we haven’t had any problems with their cable service either (but to be fair, it’s the cheapest possible cable plan, so no box to break or programming tiers to confuse).
No worries, Brian. You are still getting paid way too much so just keep pretending nothing needs to be done.
Brian Roberts NEEDS to fire everyone at Comcast and do the freaking job himself. Get back to work you lazy ass, and pay attention to your customers, or you have too much money to be going into the office now. I’m calling to cancel Comcast services, and will be shopping for a different provider soon. That is a promise to you Mr. Roberts.