Although no living, breathing people actually read my blog, it does not go unnoticed by the tireless automated bots trolling through the internet. As proof, I offer my recent experience with Comcast, in which I went from an average, angry customer to priority numero uno.
In the previous post, I laid out the troubles I'd been having with Comcast while I waited for a service appointment. My anger deepened later that afternoon, when I continued to have all the same problems, even after the repairman spent about 30 minutes in my place cleaning out and tightening all the connections and pulling out my ceiling speaker to change a splitter. Soon after I called to schedule another appointment for the following day, I noticed that someone had commented on the blog post. (Go ahead and read it now. I'll wait). Amazingly, that comment was actually left by a Comcast employee, and not someone trying to get my email address in order to send me even more solicitations for penis enlargement. "Mark C." called me that very evening even though I hadn't given him my phone number... that's when I started to think the guy might actually be for real.
From that moment on, I was receiving phone calls at a rate of at least two per day from Comcast employees, following up on my situation. I had calls from Mark, who's in customer care out on the east coast, John, who is a regional VP for the Chicagoland area, and Felicia, who's been keeping me posted on all the progress. They've all given me their direct extensions. Two days after my blog post, they had a line crew in our alley replacing the drop from the pole to our building. This appears to have completely solved the problems with my reception. In fact, we had a condo board meeting yesterday, where I learned that all the Comcast users in my building were having similar issues, and this has probably solved the problem for everyone. Not only that, but during that first phone call from Mark C., he also managed to speed up my internet connection. ("While I've got you on the phone...") Amazing.
I've changed my tune on Comcast. Throw "The Hammer" in jail.So as I promised Mark C., here for public consumption is the blog post in which I eat crow. Comcast does NOT suck. Their customer care employees are extremely friendly, and can fix the shit out of a problem when they put their mind to it. [I've been holding off on writing this post for a couple of days, just to make sure there's been a real improvement. But so far so good, and I'm guardedly optimistic that all my cable television worries have been solved. But I'll still be hanging on to all the direct extension phone numbers they gave me.]
The moral of the story, as I see it, is that I ought to be writing in my blog WAY more often, and complaining my ass off about EVERYTHING. You never know who's listening.
5 comments:
mmm...our cable works. now we can watch all 'the hills' we want!
BS that Comcast is now the best. I know they made you say it, G, so good for you... but if it takes blogging and hammers to get someone in the company to lift their fingers and solve a problem (for an entire building!), that's not good customer service. It's only mediocre customer service, and after the fact. Everyone dealing with people, in any company, should have the ability to fix poroblems from the get-go... not just b/c you blog about it or get thrown in jail for disorderly conduct.
Your cable is fixed, great. But it sure took long enough.
i disagree with marty. i think this approach is unique and innovative. they are reaching out to unhappy customers and ensuring that their problems are getting fixed. we already had people helping us without the blog post, but that one blog post got them to pay even more attention to our problem.
in the end, we didn't have to call them a million times, we didn't have to keep explaining the problem to them, and we didn't have to spend 6 hours a day waiting for their people to come out. i would rather blog about a problem and have it solved than have to call the company and deal with service calls.
I sense a lot of pent-up Comcast aggression, Marty! I see from your comment, though, that I left a couple things unclear in my post. First of all, I'm not saying that Comcast is "the best" or even anything close. I meant the whole "#1 customer" remark to mean that I was suddenly a high priority customer for them, not their biggest fan. Having only had them and RCN since I've been in the city, I can only really comment on my experience with those two services. And I do rank Comcast above RCN, which I hate. But I'm still pretty envious of Harold's DirectTV HD channel lineup, his NFL Sunday Ticket, and his NFL Network, and Big Ten network, both at no extra charge.
Secondly, Comcast never asked me to blog about the results of their attention. I jokingly told one of the guys I was talking to that if they solved the problems, I'd blog all about it. That's all I was referring to, not some sort of evil promise I was forced to make. Also, I have no idea if anyone else in our building even attempted to resolve the issue before I did, just that they told me after the fact that they'd had similar issues.
But I do agree with you, Mart. A company providing a service should be able to deliver the service properly, and respond promptly and effectively to complaints. I also agree with Marissa that this is a pretty innovative new approach to improving their PR, if not their service.
Comcast keeps it real for me in Indiana. We only give them $1,500 a year. They ought to frame our friggin' picture in the lobby of the Comcast building. Plus MOJO in HD rocks. I am thrilled their customer service was helpful.
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