It’s no secret to Consumerist readers that Comcast’s outsourced techs are often late, rude and incompetent, and that calling customer service is more akin to improving dialogue in a Beckett play, but as this exclusively obtained powerpoint made by a Comcast employee shows, it’s no secret to the cable company either. (I know the damn thing wasn’t officially created by Comcast corp. C’mon, give us more credit than that. It’s pretty obvious that it’s too funny to be official. I just meant to describe how it was created by a Comcast employee and passed around to other Comcast employees and came from inside Comcast. I realize now that “internal” makes it sound official, and that wasn’t my intention. I apologize for the confusion.) Watch and/or download the powerpoint, inside…
The powerpoint, created by a Comcast account executive and currently getting passed around inside one of their call centers, sounds a giant klaxon that the company is extremely screwed up. It warns of the perils of not addressing bad tech behavior, demoralized employees, high turnover, baroque customer service templates, and metrics that force employees to upsell additional services on top of the ones that aren’t even working right in the first place. There’s quotes and stories from real customers, like the one about the tech who said he had to go out to his van to get a screwdriver, and just drove off, rather than bother completing the install. Or how routine it is for techs to ring or knock and then bust out before they can even get to the door. Or how customers are getting lied to over the phone about plans and pricing. The embarrassments just keep coming and coming. Some choice quotes:
“On average, gas is $4.07 (too high for unnecessary truck rolls) and very shortly cable will go from a ‘need’ to an option for some people.”
Comcast Quits Early
Technicians are not showing up for appointments and it appears they are not being held accountable.
* Comcast technicians and subcontractors routinely cancel/reschedule customer appointments without approving or even notifying the customer of the change when they are tired of working.
* Several of my customers have complained that the technician was rude or short with them when they refused to let him come earlier than scheduled.
Scott of New Hudson MI (01/29/07) “I made 3 separate appointments to have Comcast come out and install cable, phone, and high speed internet as part of their Triple Play deal. The first appointment came and went, nobody showed up or called. Set up another appointment, but they did call to cancel that one…”
We’ve got it here in Google Doc, but for the full effect with all the nifty sound effects, download the original powerpoint (right click and “save link as).
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I have no problems with comcast other than their HD picture quality sucks! but then again you cant really blame that on them, the fault lyes with their HD content provider.
Ok, look folks. I’m an honest to God Customer Service Rep in a repair department at a Comcast call center. The terms, evidence and references made in this Power Point presentation all point to a familiarity with the inner-workings of Comcast. If it wasn’t made by a frustrated call center frontliner, it was made by someone who has spent a good deal of time talking to one.
Our techs are more reliable than the ones mentioned here but the remarks made about the sales stuff is spot on. I’m on the verge of being fired because I can’t meet my sales goals in a repair queue. Strangely enough, people don’t want to upgrade to CDV after spending 30+ minutes fixing a problem after an hour of getting transfered from outsourcer to outsourcer before speaking with me. Comcast cares waaaaaaaaaay more about pleasing shareholders and the upper brass than fixing your problems.
My department was great when I first joined up but once they started enforcing the sales goals, people started quitting left and right. A lot of great employees have walked out the door over it. Turnover is huge and the newbies spend more time getting trained on sales than learning tips to fix your problems. I don’t work in a repair department anymore, I work in a sales department and things are getting worse with each passing day. It’s a flippin’ joke.
Why, oh why, did I ever decide to go for a liberal arts degree?! If I only knew then what I know now…
The email was sent to all of Comcast Corporate officials, the news has been trying to interview her, she is very political and for the people, she sits not too far from me, some of these emails and postings have come directly from Comcast (I recognize the jargon, LOL)and if you ask her–she’ll tell you.
I think you should all be offended by the fact that Comcast is willing to invest more money in hiring people to blog and make fun of and hate on this powerpoint presentation with regard to the few and minor errors in it rather than investing money into fixing the cable, internet, and telephone problems the customers have. Notice, that is really the only thing Comcast’s fake bloggers can attack, because NONE of what she said was lies.  I don’t care nor do the real injured customers care about the spelling/grammer. That was funny and right on point with everything we have been telling management at Comcast. I work there too. I work in the office with Taura. She is a GIRL, and no, she HASN’T been fired. Her extension is active and she is still taking calls and she sits about four pods away from me. So “Cableguy44″ is a liar. Her presenation was not meant to be a joke according to her. It was meant to get managements attention (which it did), because
obviously they ignore everything the employees and the customers say. I have heard that presentation made it all the way to the CEO. I have noticed around the office she is political and abrupt and swears a lot (“I don’t give a fuck!”), but other than that she seems like a regular girl. Some of you ungrateful customers should be glad that someone is willing to stick their neck out, because it wouldn’t be me!
wow. that powerpoint needs to be in the permanent collection at MOMA. it would look best next to the clyfford styll paintings.
Comcast is the only cable provider in my area. We don’t get Sci Fi, G4, or HGTV on our basic plan. Everywhere else I’ve gone those channels appear on the basic plan. Oh well, I’m a month and a half late on the bill anyway, I guess that’s my payback.
Also doubting it’s an actual internal Comcast presentation. Does anyone really think an executive would describe their company as “-spastic” on a presentation?
I left Comcast years ago (as a customer) and plan never to return. Soon I will stop subscribing to satellite too simply because of the high cost of entertainment. I have too much other stuff to do and paying more than $45/mo. for programming is not worth it. Good bye!
@comcastscott: Scott, I don’t doubt there are a few souls trying to do the right thing. Feel free to respond to either of my comments above. It’s all Standard Operating Procedure from what I have seen in two different counties in MD over the years. Maybe some time this week I will try to get that second card working in the TiVo, and when I’m lied to repeatedly again, I’ll drop you a line.
I cannot confirm the _b25 firmware now because my previous modem blew up in a lightning storm (probably because Comcast Flunky #82734 removed it from my coax line surge protector last time my wife supervised them and I didn’t reconnect – I know it was connected when I set up the server!) and I am back to my old 4xxx model that doesn’t seem to show the exact filename.
I haven’t even gotten into the lies about costs of CableCARDs and what’s included in a package, the BitTorrent manipulations (I often evaluate Linux distros for work), the invalid modem rental fees I’ve been charged, the countless “missed” appointments, the claims that I didn’t return a modem when I moved, and tons of other BS that I have had to endure through the years.
Wow! I can’t believe that slide about the On-Demand not working on the
weekend. That has been happening all the time since they took over
from Time Warner in Houston. On a recent holiday weekend I called
about it because I was sick at home and couldn’t do much besides watch
tv and I was fed up with it not working. After supposedly testing the
connection and researching the issue the rep told me that “There is an
upgrade in progress and the service would be out for a while”. After I
had hung up I thought about this response and was furious! Either the
rep was feeding me a blatant lie or they have the most hateful
engineers in the world. I have worked in technology way long enough to
know that you never schedule an outage during the time that the most
user’s would need your system. So basically either their engineers are
morons or their customer service people are liars. Take your pick.
I once had Comcast service and got tired of the poor video quality and the sad excuse for a DVR box.
I signed up for AT&T U-Verse cable and internet service (I am VERY happy with it), however within a few days a Comcast technician came out and unplugged my new AT&T service from my cable box.
AT&T sent a technician out who hooked it back up. A few weeks later another Comcast technical unhooked my AT&T service again.
AT&T sent a another technician out who hooked it back up again.
A few weeks later yet another Comcast technical unhooked my AT&T service yet AGAIN. Only this time I caught the bastard in the act. OOPS! He didn’t REALLY mean the unplug it and hooked it back up again.
A few days after that I caught another Comcast technician trying to unplug my AT&T service again.
AT&T then came out and completely rewired my service so that my HDTV and internet all came across my telephone line (the completely bypassed my cable box).
A few weeks after that I received an ugly letter from Comcast accusing me of stealing cable service from them.
I called Comcast and told them that I was using AT&T. The Comcast manager told me that there was no such thing as AT&T cable service and accused me of lying.
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I WILL NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH COMCAST AGAIN.
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Don’t you know it’s better to spend money on marketing and advertising, than on customer service and quality control??? That’s the American Way! Comcast: More annoying commercials, Less service
How can we get this on Youtube with the sound effects??
Woah! the picture on slide 7 is from orofino high school. Its their mascot, the maniac.
[www.sd171.k12.id.us]
This powerpoint does not look anything like an “official” presentation. I’d say that some phone-pusher who’s getting extremely burnt out, is passing this around with a wink and nod. Grammatical errors, typos, etc, lend themselves to my theory.
My deal with Comcast: I signed up with their package, internet + TV, for only $67 or around that price every month. Then one day they raised the price to $110/Month, and claimed it was only a 6-month promo. WTF, when I signed, the women told me this deal will continue for as long as I want.
Comcast doesn’t care what their employees do to make sales, as long as comcast gets customers and their employees get their commission. They will keep moving on.
Hello all! After reading several of the comments posted here with regard to my “What Does CQE Really Mean?” PowerPoint presentation, I decided to respond. First of all, as one blogger mentioned, I am in fact a girl, and as that same blogger also mentioned, I do still work for Comcast.
First, let me start by saying I do appreciated the dialogue we are all having whether it’s good or bad, critical of me, critical of Comcast and/or otherwise. It’s nice to see the democratic process in action and the sharing of ideas and information.
Second, I would like to say that although it may not be reflected in my presentation, I do enjoy working at Comcast most of the time. NOTHING gives me greater pleasure on my job than to hear the jubilation in a customer’s voice saying things like, “I got a picture!” or “Thanks for fixing my cable!” What I don’t enjoy hearing is “Don’t try to sell me a phone!” ,”You were the only one that tried to help me”, “Why didn’t the first person do it?” or the myriad of insults and curse words being hurled at me because of things I have absolutely nothing to do with and no control over. As I have stated numerous times to coworkers and management, I believe Comcast has THE BEST services out. However, we MUST do better with product delivery services and customer service. This isn’t anything new and it’s not top secret information.
Although, I have no way of knowing specifically how the Consumerist obtained a copy of my presentation, I’m glad they have! I frequent the Consumerist website and have turned others onto it as well including the management at my job. I would also like to say, the PowerPoint presentation shown here was actually a rough cut. The final presentation actually was corrected with a spell check and grammar check and ended on a positive with the question “How can I help?” Furthermore, if all you could absorb from my presentation and find to talk about was the errors, either you are a professional blogger, a public relations geek/spin doctor, or someone with nothing better to do than criticize and be a hater. Either way, my presentation wasn’t made for you anyway so just move on.
Yes, in case some of you are still wondering, I did send my presentation to my call center director, local HR, and on June 14, 2008 several members of the Michigan Division Leadership and Midwest Region Leadership. My call center director and my HR manager were the first to respond on June 16, 2008. They were very friendly and gave me the answers that I expected. My HR manager then gave me an “Employee Acceptable Use Policy” document, “Comcast’s Code of Ethics and Business Conduct” and another document called “Personal Blogging and Other Online Public Communications”. Clearly, they have their lawyers, and I have mine (plus the few that have volunteered to help me in case I find myself in a jam regarding my presentation). The perception is that I can be completely open about my situation with regard to my presentation because:
1. Prior to me arriving at work on June 16, 2008, I have since found that some of my coworkers who had seen the presentation were taken into offices and “shook down” as part of an “investigation” regarding my presentation and having seen it.
2. Scott Westerman, Vice President of the southwest region of Comcast has had the opportunity to make a statement in a public forum with regard to my presentation. Therefore, I have the right to do so as well. It’s only fair. In case you’re wondering, Michigan is not included in the southwest region of Comcast.
3. Due to the unnecessary “investigation” conducted with regard to my presentation, I am now inundated with questions from everywhere and everyone about it.
4. I want customers and CAEs to know that I do care about how we are treated, and I am VERY interested in creating a balance where customer service can succeed and the customer can be happy.
As I have said before, my presentation was not purposely meant to be a comedy and is not some fictitious exaggeration. It is my real life at work. I did research, gathered information to present to management, and made an effort to see if maybe we could visit the idea of enhancing some things to start trying to create happy customers. My presentation was meant to bring attention to issues I had previously attempted to address that virtually went ignored. Don’t ask or suggest I give feedback if you really don’t want it. It appeared that maybe certain individuals were too busy to read and maybe needed a visual aid with sound. Sometimes that is the only way information sinks into some people. I have been “advised” and “cautioned” that my delivery of information was “inappropriate” and although edited, the language was “offensive”. I am offended everyday when a customer is inappropriately yelling and cursing me out, because I am forced to follow a procedure created in a board room by someone who doesn’t know much about how cable works or my job, and has made the decision that no matter how many foul names the customer calls me-I better not hang up the phone on them or I may lose my job. Unfortunately for me, I don’t get the words edited when the come flying out the phone receiver and into my ears. I don’t get to look at them on sheets of paper with pound signs and exclamations. I can’t really fault the customer, because if I were having repeated problems with my service I too would be mad as Hell. I would not want your “sincere apology” TWO times on ONE call, your CQE, CDV or anything else I was offered. Period.
I find it interesting that the information from Mr. Westermen on the Consumerist says one thing and has been slightly altered on his personal blog page. It’s also interesting that Mr. Westerman is able to give a perspective on midwest issues and “the vast majority of ‘our’ team members” when he works in the southwest. Maybe he is talking about his southwest team members and not mine in the midwest. I know my “document” reflects the attitudes of the coworkers of mine at my location who run up to me on a daily basis to thank me for sending my presentation to management. Am I saying it reflect all the attitudes of my coworkers? The answer is absolutely not. I know my document also reflects the attitudes of my coworkers who have reached out to me from other locations within my region, most of whom I’ve never even met. Am I saying it reflect all the attitudes of all my coworkers in the midwest region? Again, the answer is absolutely not. I have to commend Mr. Westerman for offering up his information and attempting a solution to the problem, which is far more than I can say for the Midwest Regional Leadership who didn’t even respond with an email telling me to go away. Instead they sent the Regional Director of HR. I have read some of the statistical data coming from the southwest that I do have access to. I’m sure they have their slumps in the southwest too but for the most part it appears to be solid.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Taura Brown
Tnbrown002@yahoo.com
The chance card is great
And the doggie.
The only thing with complaining about techs (in my area) is that the same people who come out to one’s house typically work with Comcast, DirecTV, DishNetwork, etc. so if that person sucks, I might try switching to a different service, and end up with the same tech.
God I hate Comcast. I own Comcast stock because of a spin off from a few company I once worked for. I think I’m going to sell it, since I shouldn’t own stock on companies I hate. Here is the letter I spent an hour writing up today.
———————
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing you today to lodge a complaint about your service.
First, let me give you a little perspective of my interactions with Comcast over the last few weeks. About three weeks ago I started having intermitten issues with my cable not working – horrible ping times or complete signal loss, followed by periods of normal behavior. I understand that an intermittent issue is difficult to diagnose, and during my first call, the problem went away while I was on the phone with your agent. During the following week it got worse, and I called again, and got someone who’s troubleshooting skills were relatively weak. She spent a good amount of the call talking over me, and answering questions I had not asked. Her diagnosis was that my modem was bad, and I agreeded to have a truck come to my house to make sure I had a good signal, as it was the only option she offered me. When the guy (Scott Farley) arrived, one of the first things he did was check the neighborhood and saw that there were a ton of houses near mine that had the exact same issue. After two weeks from when it started the problem was fixed thanks to his help.
Yesterday I received a form letter from Comcast listing my payment options, followed today (6/21/8) by an letter telling me I had an outstanding balance. I’d lost my credit card a few weeks ago, so this wasn’t a surprise to me. I called the number listed on the first letter (1-877-824-2288), followed the prompts and eventually entered my new credit card information. The automated voice read back my credit card number correctly, but then stated there was an error (I didn’t write the exact wording down.) At that point I was transferred BY YOUR SYSTEM, to a live person.
This person identified himself as Andy. His suggestion was to send me back to the automated system. He said “maybe the system is broken. Maybe it’ll work the next time.” When I pressed him on why I should go back into a system that might be broken, he got pretty confrontational and said “Are you trying to make a big deal out of this? Are you one of those customers that’s trying to make a big deal.” He then hung up on me.
I called back and eventually got to a live person again – Fred. Fred was a lot nicer, in that he didn’t threaten me or hang up on me, but he said he couldn’t take my payment. I could only do it online, over the phone or in person, and that I couldn’t speak to a supervisor. Eventually he agreeded to take my payment, but that it would be a one time payment only and I’d have to pay $3.99 for the honor (my words, not his.) Apparently you were very busy when I called ( approximately 4:15 on Saturday the 21st.) He said my only option for a re-occuring payment, given that your phone tree was apparently broken, was to make a payment over the Internet, even if I wanted to pay $3.99.
Here are the problems as I see them.
- You had an entire neighborhood (50-100 homes? I was told the number but I don’t remember exactly how many – it was a lot) with poor connectivity for a couple of weeks, and all I was ever told was that I had a bad modem. If it weren’t for one guy annoyed with spotty connectivity, and one guy doing his job correctly, those people could still be without reliable service. You should be monitoring the service you provide, at some neighborhood level, especially at $60/month per household.
- You make it exceedingly difficult to let me pay you for your substandard service and abusive customer service. I still have not been able to pay my bill, and frankly, I’m not sure if I’m going to. I’d like to, but I need you to help me. I would think of all the things you do, this would be the one that you would be good at.
- The biggest problem is that you are a monopoly. There are other Internet providers, but they don’t have the penetration you do, nor are they capable of the same speed. Since you have no competition, you have no incentive to improve. To that end, I am copying the Office of Cable Communications for the City of Seattle and Mayor Nickels to urge them to implement a city owned cable franchise. The city of Tacoma has much faster speeds than we do in Seattle, and it’s quite a bit cheaper (approximately 42.95 for the speed I currently get.) I don’t have any experience with their customer service, but I can’t imagine it would be worse.
What I need you to do is have someone from your office contact me to allow me to set up automated billing. I’ve spent over an hour today trying to pay you, and that’s all the time I’m willing to spend. If you are unable – if no one in your organization is able to set up automated billing for me, please call me and let me know.
I worked for a company that wanted to push catch phrases and group think instead of actual customer service.
Their slogan, which I’m sure took months and tens of thousands in market research and consultancy dollars was:
“World Class Service”
At the grand meeting announcing “World Class Service” I leaned over to the guy next to me and said “More like ‘Third World Class Service’.”
Yeah, they had to mute the speakerphone after that…
Why is Scott responding to blogs. Do your job and fix the problem! Don’t give us a statement prepared by Comcast Public Relations! Don’t give us the 800-Comcast number either. Offer your direct number!
It’s not surprising. Even if a Concast exec didn’t create this, it still demonstrates the reoccurring problems with the company.
And the part about most customers coming back eventually, I have news for Concast, most that I’ve spoken with, don’t.
People will take abuse for only so long before they fight back.
Oh and btw, FTTH is coming here!!!
Whoopie!
Comcast’s scott westerman’s personal blog doesn’t allow comments:
[scottwesterman.com]
He wrote this:
“But all of us want to provide excellent customer care. At Comcast, we’re listening to the blogs and engaging on FriendFeed and Twitter to learn where the areas of opportunity are. We try to put out the fires but at the same time seek to understand the root causes.
And we’re making progress. Over the last 12 months, we’ve made significant investments in additional human resources, training and technology, all focused on improving customer care. Our customers have asked for more price points, more HD and faster Internet speeds. We’re delivering on all of those promises and there is more on the way.”
How about customers asking for techs to show up when promised…
I personally don’t see how customers can ask for “faster internet speeds” yet Comcast limit (or “throttle”) the download quantities. IE- your speed is superfast ONLY as long as you want to download a small-sized file, if you want to bust a huge file, well that might slow ya down…
The Monopoly theme is priceless. I remember having to deal with the hundreds of lost email and the inflated prices and the terrible customer service. Really bad times. That’s why I switched to Cavalier. No issues. Good customer service. Great product (internet and cable). Competitive price. It was like I didn’t get to pass GO, but I landed in Candy Land.
I have a good friend who went through an ugly divorce. After the divorce his comcast bill was still in her name. He called comcast and requested that they change the name to his name.
They didn’t and wouldn’t. The ex-wife who he has a hostile relationship was the only person that they would change the account for and she wasn’t about to do anything for him.
For six months the bills kept coming in her name and he refused to pay them, because they weren’t in his name.
Finally, the bills stopped coming, but the cable is still on. It’s been a year and a half since the bills stopped coming and the cable has been on all that time.
That’s some fine adminstrative process comcast.
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The people from comcast who are posting on here clearly don’t understand the meaning of the term monopoly.
“clearly most customers are satisfied or they wouldn’t be with comcast?”
What?
If comcast is your only option, than it isn’t necesarrily by choice that they remain with the crappy service.
I used to work at a cable company. Both at the local operational level and at headquarters. It really is not the fault of the people you interact with at the local level. They get directives from the assholes in corporate which demand more and more profits. When you explain that you can’t hit the targets without raising rates or cutting people, they will tell you: “You just answered your own question.”