Like a number of corporate customer service Twitter account, the public replies from the @ComcastCares account are of the “Sorry to hear that” variety, often with a request for a private direct message containing more specific account information. But are these similar-sounding responses produced by a computer script or by a human being who just assumes that everyone hates the company they work for?

Comcast insists it’s the latter, even in spite of evidence like this bizarre exchange from earlier in the week, in which Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Claudia Vargas merely quoted Philly mayoral candidate Jim Kenney’s feelings about Comcast’s “very slow and frustrating” service:

This reply from @ComcastCares has all the hallmarks of an automated response: The canned sincerity, the utter disregard for the context or content of the original Tweet.

And then it gets better. Almost immediately after sending that robotic reply, @ComcastCares follows up with another Tweet that demonstrates its inability to distinguish between a customer complaint and someone writing about Comcast:

In spite of all the indicators that these responses are probably being generated by a server in the bowels of Comcast Tower 1, the company insists that these Tweets were written by living, breathing human beings.

Comcast tells Philly.com that there are actually 60 staffers manning the @ComcastCares Twitter line and that one of them must have gotten a bit overzealous and jumped the gun on their response to Vargas.

However, responding with an apology to a Tweet that was quite obviously not a customer complaint doesn’t exactly strike us as proactive or zealous customer service. Instead, it feels like the auto-response from someone who is so used to being yelled at that their immediate reaction is to apologize.

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