I actually complained via twitter, about having to sit with the online "Chat" for 2 hours to confirm prices and service. i was then contacted by a couple "executives" and lo and behold i am now having my installation from 4/23 to 4/19. to bad they require SSN for DVR. they would have mad quite a bit of money from me if they didnt do that..

@tk427: Part of the problem is that many companies do pay minimum wage (or at least very little) just to have a warm body answering phones.

Often enough, the warm body doesn't have much experience, is poorly trained and is not properly equiped to help you.

I'm glad to hear about the Orwellian customer support tactics in this case. It at least means that someone is paying attention, and is able to help people. The alternative is the phone, and we all know how that's been working out.

They are. To be clearer I meant they DON'T have to engage in the retroactive task of chasing customers and appeasing them AFTER they've had such bad service the make it public.

Netflix has good press from the beginning, which is far more valuable than fixing constant f-ups.

Another reason I love the internet though. It truly gives a ton of greasy to the little guy's squeaky wheel.

Actually we participate in activity throughout the internet. In fact I have worked with Ben and others at the Consumerist to assist Customers. Another example is on the blog website (Trusted Advisor) that posted "Comcast Is Worse Than The New Jersey DMV." If you review the entry right after the blog, the author comments of our outreach efforts.

Of course we also need to make sure we get it right the first time which unfortunately we didn't when you first called in. We are working to do just that. We are listening and I am sharing all the online feedback I get with the head of customer care.

Frank Eliason
Comcast

Let me see if I have this right.......
Besides dialing comcast and waiting 20+ minutes to get some help from a know nothing.... I can now,
1. Set up blog and vent.
2. Set up a twitter account and vent.
3. Walk into any office with a hammer and bash up their keyboards.

Just want to make sure I have this all down.

Pity it is only the corporate folks who can see Twitter.

Almost every "blog" site is blocked for those not in the folks not "in the loop".

Something about being more productive employees, if memory serves on the reasoning.

Gotcha.

Comcast is working so hard to be the Worst Company Ever (this year). I hope they get it. They've gone beyond anyone's expectations to wreck their reputation with customers.

That's what I call dedication.

What will they win, btw?

Meanwhile how many staffers does Netflix have devoted to forum surfing and damage control?

Deck chairs, Titanic, etc...

If you could get FIOS. Having real competition to cable for TV and Internet, and not Dish DSL from similarly terrible companies- or often slower more expensive DSL from an indifferent Telcom would be great.

Between bad choices/service/prices and for cell, tv and internet, the FCC has been doing a bang up job the last eight years. Oy.

I'm not surprised you get a better response.

I think Shaggy just had a jingle idea...

Too costly actually. It's far cheaper to respond to a few complaints from people that are actually tenacious enough to get their problems to the attention of powerful people who can really help.

Most customers won't raise a stink about beyond the call center and will simply decide to leave for another company rather than try to fight Comcast.

Google Alerts emails webpage URL findings whenever it's spiders detect something your intrested in, such as Comcast. So it's not just Comcast having some guy monitoring various blogs, it's just a subscription a PR goon uses so they can put in damage control quickly.

@fordpickup: Exactly. Why waste the money and monitor the net when you could fix your customer phone experience, I guess that would be too easy?

That's funny stuff. Last time I said "FUCK YOU" to a company, it was to PayPal's automated phone system.
It promptly replied with "Thank you for calling PayPal, goodbye!" and hung up on me.
They consistently vie for my #1 spot for worst company ever.

In my personal opinion, it's purely PR. They simply can get away with giving bad customer service over the phone because the average customer isn't going to post about it online. When it's online, they go into damage control because thousands could potentially read about it. Plus, they look good.

[boards.straightdope.com]

It's very strange to have a company pop up in a message board like this - especially considering they have no real reason to monitor us. We're a large board but by no means a "top board", and we're general interest.

why not just resolve issues properly through their "normal" customer service channels instead of only responding after public admoninshment?

I imagine it's because they're just not that integrated. From my years of struggling with Comcast, I can tell you that they're divided into little insular areas that don't talk to one another, and probably hate one another. The CSRs in the call centers can't communicate with the techs in the field, or with the local office (which is the only place that can resolve a billing issue, but that has no inbound phone service).

It just sounds like they have a PR department that monitors their online reputation, with a few top-secret e-mail addresses that they can use to get something done in some cases.

I'm going to try online shaming next time. It certainly beats wasting my life on Kafkaesque conversations with powerless CSRs.

What pisses me off about satellite systems is that the reputed number of channels includes at least a dozen shopping (for garbage) channels, a few that show nothing but infomercials, Fox News, and at least a dozen versions of Jesus TV (not the Jesus you remember from Sunday school - this one just wants your money). Not all of them are grouped conveniently enough for me to use my user-defined menu functionality to filter them without a degree in computer science. At least the TV I do get is almost always ready when I am. So far.

@fordpickup: You beat me to it.
I want to see "Comcast Monitors Customer Service Calls"
Can't they pay a few people minimum wage to sit and scan the channels day and night?

Yeah, sounds like a real case of damage control rather than customer service. If they were interested in customer service they'd have people on the phones when Joe Nobody calls in rather than just having people help the guys that can make noise online.