Documents Show Comcast Pushes Customer Service To Make Sales

Thank you for calling Comcast, can I sell you something before I place you on hold for an hour? No? Are you sure?

Despite the fact that Comcast has departments devoted to both inbound and outbound sales, the company encourages its employees in customer service, tech support, and other departments to make sales as well. This often puts the employee's interests at odds with the customer, who may be calling in to report a technical problem, billing issue, or to downgrade their service.

Click to expand...

They must have some type of profiling training to determine who to upsell on services or resists cancellation because this has never happened to me and I've been on/off comcast for over 10 years, but then again I'm kind of a dick on the phone sometimes to get shit done so maybe they dont even bother trying it with me.

Comcast been good around here til I canceled them a few months back. They didn't even give me a hard time canceling. Afterward tho they been aggressive to get me back. They been sending sales man once a week to my house to get me to sign back up. They just don't get no means no =(.

It's like any job that involves selling to the customer, you're trained to sell larger/bigger/more expensive. Hell my after high school job was working in a movie theater and they told us to try and up sell as much as possible, sometimes it got down right embarrassing what they expected of us.

Customer: Can I get a small popcorn and small soda
Me: No problem, sure you don't want to make it a large it's only $2 more and you get 4 times as much
C: No the small is fine
M: Ok, now can I get you any candy, or a hotdog or anything else that will get you to spend money?

I don't know maybe that's why I'm so bitter today where when I give a request I expect that request to be fulfilled and I don't want any special offers. Every time I've dealt with DirecTV after getting a customer service agent I'm very cross with them, I plainly tell them what I want, if they try to sell me anything I cut them off and tell them not to offer me another thing I just want this cancelled.

This is no surprise surely. Time Warner is the same. God forbid you call them wanting to downgrade your service in any way, never mind drop it altogether. They do their damnedest to get you to do the exact opposite of what you're trying to do in calling them.

i worked at Comcast in tech support years ago.... the rep gets commisions for everything. Upgrade to higher internet speed or more premium channels or Phone service... the rep gets like 5 to 10 dollars a pop... which can add up over a weeks time.

Once, when I moved and had to change my address to the new apartment, the agent told me about this huge package with HD cable TV, DVR, and 50Mb cable internet for $80/month. All I had to do was show up at the office to get my DVR. When I arrived at the office, then handed me the regular digital cable box and a remote. I told them it was supposed to include a DVR, and they told me definitely not, and the HD and DVR would cost me an extra $25/month over the $90 I was being charged for the package. She lied about both the features and the pricing. Twice, once during a connection problem on the neighborhood level and once when my cable modem died, I've had them say they could get me a package with internet at the same speed and basic digital cable for $10 less, and then my bill arrives for $10 more than what I was paying before.

Not only do they push sales from their customer service people, they push them to lie about the features and the pricing. This hasn't changed in a decade. It's not new. Don't believe anything they tell you about the stuff they're selling. They lie. They always lie.

Sounds like they have too many people working on commission... Luckily I do not have to deal with them currently, but I'm moving to a time warner area, so I might soon enough. If the day does come I plan on recording all interactions with this company. If it's documented and they go against that, there is always social media to disgrace them further.

Just had a similar thing with my parents who wanted to cancel service and they pretty much refused to. Then one rep said they did and yet service and bills didn't stop. In the end my parents went to their local office and returned the modem and demanded they cancel. To my surprise they did it this time. From personal experience though, XM Radio was the worse when it comes to this crap.

The worst thing I've had was calling because my net speeds are absolute shit. No where near what im paying for and then they try to upsell me to a higher speed. I mean really? Fix your broken shit before I would even come close to considering that

This is standard call center industry practice. Why are people surprised by this? It isn't even news worthy.

Every call center job I have worked and friends/relatives have worked do this. Sprint, ATT, Time Warner, etc. etc. Even the bank I currently work for does this.

Granted, some companies like my bank are more discreet about it and tend to emphasize selling services that help the customer and the bank at same time (e.g. online services), but it is standard practice to sell and pay customer service reps commission on those sales.

CaptNumbNutz said:

This is standard call center industry practice. Why are people surprised by this? It isn't even news worthy.

Click to expand...

Doesn't make it right.

Also, Comcast is becoming the poster child of the WRONG way to do it. Some others are nice about it and no means no. If I have to say no more than twice, I let them know that I'm getting pissed and no means no.

CaptNumbNutz said:

This is standard call center industry practice. Why are people surprised by this? It isn't even news worthy.

Every call center job I have worked and friends/relatives have worked do this. Sprint, ATT, Time Warner, etc. etc. Even the bank I currently work for does this.

Granted, some companies like my bank are more discreet about it and tend to emphasize selling services that help the customer and the bank at same time (e.g. online services), but it is standard practice to sell and pay customer service reps commission on those sales.

Click to expand...

There's a distinct difference between me calling my credit card company with an issue, having them resolve it, ask if there is anything else they can do for me, and when I say no, asking if they can interest me in product/service XYZ, and presenting relentless upselling IN PLACE OF the support I actually need for your product to be useful.

CaptNumbNutz said:

This is standard call center industry practice. Why are people surprised by this? It isn't even news worthy.

Every call center job I have worked and friends/relatives have worked do this. Sprint, ATT, Time Warner, etc. etc. Even the bank I currently work for does this.

Granted, some companies like my bank are more discreet about it and tend to emphasize selling services that help the customer and the bank at same time (e.g. online services), but it is standard practice to sell and pay customer service reps commission on those sales.

Click to expand...

You can add HP and Verizon to the list of companies that do this. Wall Street is driving customer support and company value while telling employees that it makes the investor's happy.

CaptNumbNutz said:

This is standard call center industry practice. Why are people surprised by this? It isn't even news worthy.

Every call center job I have worked and friends/relatives have worked do this. Sprint, ATT, Time Warner, etc. etc. Even the bank I currently work for does this.

Granted, some companies like my bank are more discreet about it and tend to emphasize selling services that help the customer and the bank at same time (e.g. online services), but it is standard practice to sell and pay customer service reps commission on those sales.

Click to expand...

Exactly right. Nothing new. Dealt with this BS back in the early 90s. The company I worked for decided that anyone that had to contact end customers as part of their job requirements, had to meet a sales score and try to sell them a service contract or junky accessories from our catalog. For me, this was on top of a production score and a quality score I had to meet. Those 2, I had no problem with. You had to do quality work, and you have to turn out enough of it. I was a bench technician, WTF am I doing selling rabbit ears and CD cases? If your scores dropped, you got warning and was put on probation. If your score wasn't back up by next quarter they let you go.
A round of layoffs came and I got hit. I was jobless but was actually happy I was free.