Comcast customer service sucks so much because they outsource much of it to Convergys, affectionately called the “sweat shop” of the call center industry. One disgruntled insider has these four unverified confessions about how they run their customer service hellholes:

4. Agents get the answers to certification tests right before the tests.“It is pretty hard to fail the test & most people openly cheat anyway…”

3. “Supervisors” are just agents they pull off the floor.
“They have no power, or even skills, and may have only been on the job for 1 month. They are not different then the agent that you were speaking to at the start of the call.”

2. Get rewarded for getting customers off the phone, not fixing their problem.
“Average call time handle is 10 minutes. You do not get in any trouble if you can’t fix problems, but if your call handle time is too high they will fire you.”

1. You can’t escalate
“They are given no way of effectively dealing with problems that need escalated, they have no way to contact local offices other than an email. They have no numbers to call anyone at Comcast directly, not the local dispatchers, the local offices or corporate offices.”

Writes our insider, “Employees hired to do the job are ill paid, ill treated & overworked. In fact, most hate working there. The company they work for tells them when applying that they need no tech skills. They have hired people to do tech support for Comcast HSI [high speed internet] that have never touched a PC. They are quickly losing any skilled people they had because agents are fed up with how they are treated, the pay scale and the fact that they are set up to fail at the job.”

Take it all with somewhat of a grain of salt because this sounds like someone really unhappy with their job, but if his allegations are true, it could go a long way to help explain why so many of readers have written in complaining about Comcast customer service.

(Photo: largeprime)

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