Comcast Admits Rep Was Doing “What We Trained Him To Do”

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I guess all those Comcast employees coming forward has forced the company to admit they do in fact train employees to do exactly what this guy was doing.

The agent on this call did a lot of what we trained him and paid him — and thousands of other Retention agents — to do. He tried to save a customer, and that’s important, but the act of saving a customer must always be handled with the utmost respect. This situation has caused us to reexamine how we do some things to make sure that each and every one of us — from leadership to the front line — understands the balance between selling and listening. And that a great sales organization always listens to the customer, first and foremost.
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We had enough evidence against us that we couldn't out and out lie about this issue, so we will issue BS press releases stating how we will change this, and never actually do so. In the majority of our markets we are the sole provider of services, or the sole provider that actually meets consumer's expectations in the year 2014. Due to this, while we want to keep public anger down enough to actually make them go out and actually push for change via legislation, we don't really give a f.
 
TwistedAegis said:
We had enough evidence against us that we couldn't out and out lie about this issue, so we will issue BS press releases stating how we will change this, and never actually do so. In the majority of our markets we are the sole provider of services, or the sole provider that actually meets consumer's expectations in the year 2014. Due to this, while we want to keep public anger down enough to actually make them go out and actually push for change via legislation, we don't really give a f.
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QFT
 
If I was the guy, I would have just told him 'because I'm starting my job with Time Warner next monday'
:D
 
TwistedAegis said:
We had enough evidence against us that we couldn't out and out lie about this issue, so we will issue BS press releases stating how we will change this, and never actually do so. In the majority of our markets we are the sole provider of services, or the sole provider that actually meets consumer's expectations in the year 2014. Due to this, while we want to keep public anger down enough to actually make them go out and actually push for change via legislation, we don't really give a f.
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QFT
 
This is SOP in the cable industry. Another reason why cable companies should not have locks on market areas.
 
holy shit, these are the guys buying time warner cable? I really didn't think it was possible to get worse.
 
I think the main problem is that they consider themselves a "sales organization" and not a provider of a service.

Tech support is a service, paid for by some small part of the customer's monthly bill, it should never be considered a subdivision of "sales". Treating is as such leads to entirely the wrong sets of goals.

Until Comcast is able to think of tech support as a service, instead of a division of sales, things will never change.
 
He tried to save a customer
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So he thought he was Jesus? Their bottom line was the only thing they were trying to save. If they didn't suck so bad they wouldn't have to waste money paying for that position.
 
I moved last month and ended up having to deal with the same shit. After half an hour on the phone trying to explain the basic fact that I'm moving out of state, I ended up giving up and driving down to the office. There the guy just took my equipment, cashed me out, and said good luck with the move.

I'm just glad my new place has a choice between cable and FIOS.
 
wow that's brutal!
Years ago I made a call to Charter to disconnect and cancel my account, they did try to yap on and on and I finally told the rep to either keep my rates the same to avoid a price hike that year since I was a customer for 15 years or I'll switch to FIOS since it was superior in tv, internet, and phone. The rep actually told me to take the FIOS deal and terminated my account minutes later. I've had a great experience w/ FIOS for the past 5 years so far, it's a shame so many are having issues with it.
 
TwistedAegis said:
We had enough evidence against us that we couldn't out and out lie about this issue, so we will issue BS press releases stating how we will change this, and never actually do so. In the majority of our markets we are the sole provider of services, or the sole provider that actually meets consumer's expectations in the year 2014. Due to this, while we want to keep public anger down enough to actually make them go out and actually push for change via legislation, we don't really give a f.
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I don't see any reason to go any further with this

Aegis wins the internet for today
 
If you want to cancel cable, record yourself saying "cancel it." Loop the recording, and place your phone in front of the speaker for the next 15 minutes.
 
Scythe said:
This is SOP in the cable industry. Another reason why cable companies should not have locks on market areas.
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This is SOP for the Call Center industry. As I said in the previous thread. Nothing they did here was surprising on any level. It is the shitty way call centers across the board are trained to handle numbers..I mean customers. I can only hope that this shines such a negative light on comcast that it forces some industry change. The way call centers operate now is just atrocious.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
This is SOP for the Call Center industry. As I said in the previous thread. Nothing they did here was surprising on any level. It is the shitty way call centers across the board are trained to handle numbers..I mean customers. I can only hope that this shines such a negative light on comcast that it forces some industry change. The way call centers operate now is just atrocious.
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It's not just call centers, its the industry. I worked for Dish as a technician and with guys that worked for Charter and ATT, we all had the same experiences in that performance was measured on standards that leave a great deal in the hands of someone else. Your expected to know the system (relatively easy part), be able to teach people of all different types how to use something completely foreign in a presentation that was both informative but also short enough not to lose their attention, defuse hostile customers, AND get all this done in a predetermined, generically set timeframe. The hardest part of all that, because its where the performance metrics are heavily weighted, is customer education....Oh, you have an elderly customer who's hard of hearing get hooked up by customer service with the latest and greatest in HD/DVR who only has a 22" console television from the 70s? You'd better make sure they absolutely know what they're doing because if they call customer service, they'll definitely be wanting someone to come show them how to use it again, and guess what, the original installer loses out on bonus money for it. Never mind the personalized brochure, stickers on the remote, hand written reminders, and personal/local office phone number being left....they'll call the customer service. There are many many many more stories that all of us have as technicians about the unfair performance metrics the industry pushes on its technicians and then wonders why there is such a high rate of attrition.
 
This story cracks me up, last time I moved Comcast was "unable" to come out within 2 weeks of me moving into my new place.

When I called to cancel they just said, "Okay" no arguments no deals no nothing.

I hung up and was kind of shocked, now I have RCN as my provider and I couldn't be more satisfied.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
This is SOP for the Call Center industry. As I said in the previous thread. Nothing they did here was surprising on any level. It is the shitty way call centers across the board are trained to handle numbers..I mean customers. I can only hope that this shines such a negative light on comcast that it forces some industry change. The way call centers operate now is just atrocious.
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Yup, pretty much. Not sure why this was even news.

When I tried to cancel DirecTV this spring, I told them their dish was off my roof and their equipment was all disconnected and waiting for return boxes, but they still insisted on trying to keep me as a customer for the next 10 minutes.
 
I recently dropped Comcast after 13 years of service due to a move. They wouldn't move my service to another home because the phone number on my account (which I had updated, more than once) was the same number I had 13 years ago, which was no longer in service. I had updated my phone number online to my current phone number, which I've had for 6 years. I had them update it when I was on the phone with them a couple times, too. I even had a tech out a couple years ago, who called my current phone number when he arrived. Yet they still had that old old phone number on my account when I went to move, so they cancelled my account since they couldn't get a hold of me for the move scheduling. Since my account was cancelled, they told me it couldn't be reactivated, so I'd have to buy a new package.
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Translation: "We got caught/busted/outed. Sowwy." :D
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No no. They aren't sorry about a damn thing but getting caught. Probably not even that really. Probably more that it is possible for what everyone knows to be true to be circulated around and get attention.
 
I said this exact thing in the other thread... this dude was just doing what he is being FORCED to do. WHo knows? Perhaps he HADN'T been doing this and was told that the next time he didn't try harder he would have been without a job??

Trust me... I've worked in the industry, and what is required of you would boggle some of your minds.
 
QwertyJuan said:
I said this exact thing in the other thread... this dude was just doing what he is being FORCED to do. WHo knows? Perhaps he HADN'T been doing this and was told that the next time he didn't try harder he would have been without a job??

Trust me... I've worked in the industry, and what is required of you would boggle some of your minds.
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Did you listen to the recording? I am pretty sure this dude was not being forced to act this exact way. There is a huge difference between simply trying to keep a customer and flat-out refusing to cancel service before the customer provided an "adequate" answer as to why he was cancelling, and then spouting all kinds of nonsense for the next 5 minutes.

I have had other interactions with Comcast CSRs and have never once encountered something as bad as what I heard on this recording.
 
The trick I started using a few months into this was when the rep FIRST gets on the phone and tells you that you are being recorded, I also inform them they are also being recorded for training purposes. This normally is followed by about 3 minutes into the conversation "accidentally" being disconnected. Never really a big deal since Comcast sucks in my region and will always suck, but it does give me some jollies to hear them squirming on the other side of the phone.
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
He was only following orders .... :rolleyes:


Nuremberg -----> :eek:
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When following orders means that they get to keep living in their house and driving their car, a lot of people will "just follow orders", even if those people are fully aware that the orders are wrong/immoral.
 
sir-gold said:
When following orders means that they get to keep living in their house and driving their car, a lot of people will "just follow orders", even if those people are fully aware that the orders are wrong/immoral.
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MANY people at call-centres don't WANT to do what they are doing and don't want to SAY what they are saying. But guess what? That is their job, and if they want to keep it, they do it. End of Story.

All these people that say they've gotten people that didn't act like this? They probably lost their jobs by now for not "trying hard enough". Sad but true.
 
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