Comcast Cable Chief Promises Customer Service Will “Be Our Best Product.” Really.

Comcast CEO Neil Smit told a panel at the International CES conference that customer service would soon be the company's best product.

Comcast CEO Neil Smit told a panel at the International CES conference that customer service would soon be the company’s best product.

Comcast is reigning Worst Company in America champion for a reason: we’ve seen story after story after story where consumers have struggled just to get basic service from the company. But Comcast cable head Neil Smit was confident (or delusional) when he told a panel at the International CES that customer service would soon be the best product to come from the company.

Smit told the audience at a “Fast Innovation” panel Wednesday afternoon that Comcast is on the way to a complete customer service turnaround.

“We do need to transform our customer experience, and I think we have a lot of work to do,” Smit said, in what might be the understatement of the century. “It will take time, but we’ll get it done.”

Customer satisfaction surveys have consistently found Comcast lagging behind pretty much everyone. The most recent customer satisfaction surveys, released at the end of December, found Comcast scoring well below average in “overall satisfaction” in every area. In the 2014 American Customer Satisfaction Index, Comcast doesn’t just score in the bottom for pay-TV and broadband companies, but lowest among all companies, beaten only by their acquisition target Time Warner Cable.

To address customer satisfaction issues, Smit said, the company has already been hard at work by moving their “top product person” and putting him in charge of customer service. He was referring to senior vice president of customer experience Charlie Herrin, who the company promised in September would be on hand to fix customers’ cable experiences.

“We expect that customer service will soon be one of our best products,” Smit concluded optimistically, while we all rolled our eyes.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.