Comcast: Customer Service Will “Be Our Best Product”

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I can't believe this guy actually said customer service is going to be Comcast's best product. :eek:

Comcast is reigning Worst Company in America champion for a reason: we’ve seen story after story after story where consumers have struggled just to get basic service from the company. But Comcast cable head Neil Smit was confident (or delusional) when he told a panel at the International CES that customer service would soon be the best product to come from the company.
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When anyone attempts to make ANY amount of change with companies this big, it is like steering a battleship at full speed into a U-Turn. Yes, change must start from the top down, but I HIGHLY doubt any significant change will be seen by the consumer on this for quite some time (if ever).

Once you program employee's into a certain mode of working, it is nearly impossible to remove that way of doing it without completely redefining the position they do or outright firing them all.

TL;DR: Good luck with that!
 
I think this guy has given us a clue. It's going to be the best bullshit customer service will ever see.
 
they just mean they plan on servicing their dicks much better in our wallets and asses...

seriously - fuck em. It's amazing you can flat out get caught in a lie and suffer no consequences these days. (politicians too)

System needs a reboot.
 
They should. Take some attention off of what politicians they are buying. I was looking at some campaign contributions last election... Comcast and some other huge communication companies are big into paying politicians

Customer service is just part of why people hate them. At least it's a step in the right direction. Makes them look good, anyway, from the outside.
 
I notice something interesting.
It says their customer service will soon be their 'best product', but it doesn't actually say they are going to make customer service better.
He could be talking about making everything else they do so bad that their customer service is just the best by horrible comparison.

We do need to transform our customer experience, and I think we have a lot of work to do, It will take time, but we’ll get it done.
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See that doesn't say better, improved, or even good. It will be transformed. Transformed into what though? Transformed from a steaming pile of crap, to a bubbling puddle of vomit? Is the puddle better?

fix customers’ cable experiences
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Again, not improve. Just 'fix' . Maybe instead of offering decent cable service ( not saying it is though ) and horrible customer service, they will offer horrible customer service and even worse cable service? Fixed!
 
Pure lip service. A company in the effective monopoly position they are in has no incentive to truly change.
 
I'll be looking for the letter indicating that prices will be going up again... they need to pay for good service somehow.
 
Their Internet service can't get much worse, so there's that.
 
Stop outsourcing your customer service, then pay those people a fair wage so they are not miserable and actually care about the Comcast name. Why would anyone who doesn't work for Comcast care about their customers? They only care enough to keep their job, and that is not enough incentive.
 
And just how will this be accomplished? By rubbing on some KY Jelly before they stick it to you?
 
c0mad0r said:
When anyone attempts to make ANY amount of change with companies this big, it is like steering a battleship at full speed into a U-Turn. Yes, change must start from the top down, but I HIGHLY doubt any significant change will be seen by the consumer on this for quite some time (if ever).

Once you program employee's into a certain mode of working, it is nearly impossible to remove that way of doing it without completely redefining the position they do or outright firing them all.

TL;DR: Good luck with that!
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Big changes like this almost never work when the people running the company are so tremendously separated from the actual people doing the work. Almost none of the CEOs want to hit the pavement and see how calls go, they want someone to blow smoke up their ass and tell them that calls are doing better. Each person going up the manage chain is doing extreme CYA and trying to make everything look as good as possible. By the time the feedback gets to a CEO it has been massaged seven times over and looks like unicorns and butterflies.
 
Some CEOs also view leadership as "Ignore all realistic limitations on goals, ignore feedback from the ground, and still press ahead." Leadership, bravery, vision! Then when everything fails, they blame everyone else for failing to implement their vision. Their Board of Directors, which are CEOs just like them from other companies or retired, is the only person the CEO is accountable to, so they commiserate with the poor CEO burdened with lazy slobs, peons, and generally un-visioned peasantry.

They take their golden parachute and move on to the next gig.

Pretty awesome work, if you can get it.
 
A nice laugh for the day. I will likely chuckle about this all day. Comcast and good customer service. How laughable.
 
I wish they'd simply make a better "real" product so I don't even need customer service.
Whenever I think of the companies that over-focus on customer service they usually have an inferior product or price. Comcast fails on both accounts.
 
MaxTheLimit said:
I notice something interesting.
It says their customer service will soon be their 'best product', but it doesn't actually say they are going to make customer service better.
He could be talking about making everything else they do so bad that their customer service is just the best by horrible comparison.
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This. I was going to say the same thing. Make your other products worse so your CS looks good!
 
c0mad0r said:
When anyone attempts to make ANY amount of change with companies this big, it is like steering a battleship at full speed into a U-Turn. Yes, change must start from the top down, but I HIGHLY doubt any significant change will be seen by the consumer on this for quite some time (if ever).

Once you program employee's into a certain mode of working, it is nearly impossible to remove that way of doing it without completely redefining the position they do or outright firing them all.

TL;DR: Good luck with that!
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This person knows what they're talking about. This has been ingrained in Cable Co's and Telecoms since the very beginning. Does anyone remember the PITA process it was to cancel, switch plans, or inquire about anything with Cell Phone companies? It's still an issue, but they've been spending the past 10 years trying to be better and they are still aways off. This is something that will have to change the foundations on which they were built upon.

These businesses only know how to be the alpha-male.
 
I've never had any issues with Comcast's customer support while I was still a customer. But I haven't had Comcast in years.
 
they'll need to revamp their employee training, fire everyone and hiring new people.
 
It isn't that I really give a damn about whether they are friendly or cordial, or even if it takes them one minute or ten minutes to get to me. Those things are nice but...

What really matters, and we all know Comcast will never read this, is that they... ... ...

HAVE SOMEONE ON THE OTHER END OF THE PHONE THAT CAN ACTUALLY FIX TECHNICAL PROBLEMS WITH YOUR CONNECTION.

And I don't mean the usual impossible task of doing PC troubleshooting on the phone. That's not Comcast's job. What IS their job is FIXING YOUR BILL when there is a problem. And HAVING THE POWER TO SCHEDULE WORK when you clearly have an unusual local infrastructure problem. Also BEING ABLE TO ACTUALLY MAKE CHANGES TO YOUR SERVICE IN REAL TIME. Why the hades isn't there an army of people certified touch your service while you are on the phone? Why can you only talk to the person who "doesn't have the authority or ability" to provision your modem, check their crappy all-in-one router that's acting up again, fix a wrong performance tier, or whatever? Have network techs available that you can be transferred to who can DO THIS. RIGHT NOW.

That would be GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE.
 
NobleX13 said:
Their Internet service can't get much worse, so there's that.
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Yeah I was going to say, them saying their customer service will be their "best product" just means everything else they sell will be shittier than that, which is pretty damn bad. :p
 
Comcast has a fundamentally flawed business model if their plan is to make customers happy. People don't like cable companies because they are sleazy as hell and anti-customer. The norm in the cable and internet industry is to repeatedly try roping people into short term promo pricing plans before then slamming the rates up to a much higher price after X months. This pisses customer off when they figure it out.

Comcast also is going down the path of repeatedly increasing a variety of fees to make more money. Of course they tell people about this months in advance by sending customers spreadsheet notices of rate changes. This also pisses people off, and they will be doubly pissed when they eventually find out their $10/month cable modem was only worth like $40 to begin with.

Past all that, Comcast is one of the worse offenders of sending people spam mail trying repeatedly to get them to sign up for more services. All of the promos rates are affected by my first point, and customers don't have many ways of knowing "What is the normal rate for this?"

Then Comcast rolls along and tries to turn everyone's house into an access point for other people on Comcast services. Because what everyone loves is random people in the area connecting to a device directly in their house.

Comcast needs to offer a product with a more customer friendly pricing and tier structure before people are going to be happy with them. Even with the nicest phone reps in the world, tons of people will still hate Comcast for their shit business model.
 
ocellaris said:
Comcast needs to offer a product with a more customer friendly pricing and tier structure before people are going to be happy with them. Even with the nicest phone reps in the world, tons of people will still hate Comcast for their shit business model.
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Why? There's no legitimate competitors in the majority of their operating areas. They own various TV networks, so they have some level of control over contracts to competing services (streaming).

Most people don't realize how evil ma'bell was when they had a telecommunication monopoly. They were outright putting competitors in jail. Look up Walter L. Shaw, he invented a lot of what we know today and died without a penny and spent a good chunk of his life in prison for competing with Bell.
 
It's always the same with large businesses that hire contract workers. They use their cheap labor as an escape goat for bad customer service and illegal billing practices. The lack of communication and action is not a coincidence when a company is so fixated on shareholder profits.
 
-PK- said:
It's always the same with large businesses that hire contract workers. They use their cheap labor as an escape goat for bad customer service and illegal billing practices. The lack of communication and action is not a coincidence when a company is so fixated on shareholder profits.
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Yep, the most likely outcome of this is they will blame the company responsible for their customer service outsourcing, fire them, and hire a different company. Problem solved!
 
MavericK96 said:
Yeah I was going to say, them saying their customer service will be their "best product" just means everything else they sell will be shittier than that, which is pretty damn bad. :p
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It also probably means they intend to add it as a new charge on your cable bill.
 
amddragonpc said:
I think this guy has given us a clue. It's going to be the best bullshit customer service will ever see.
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This.

Imagine providing your customers 3mbit DSL internet and your customers are complaining because you don't offer better.

Nothing but BS from there. :D
 
Oh, no...another biased, mostly non-factual Comcast body-slam from "the consumerist"..Lol...;) What a sick web site. Ugh. They'd peddle their grandmothers for page hits. Sites like these are not the Internet's finest hour by a few light years.
 
Spidey329 said:
Why? There's no legitimate competitors in the majority of their operating areas. They own various TV networks, so they have some level of control over contracts to competing services (streaming).
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Oh I totally agree with you on the reality of this. My point was that if they really want good customer service experiences, their business model would need to be flipped on it's head. Comcast is based on being monopolistic and greedy to rake in as much money as possible with the least amount of competition. That will lead to them always having pissed off customer, no matter what they do.

At the end of the day, Comcast is just throwing out some pillow talk in an attempt to appease pissed off people, then they will go back to thinking about nothing but money.
 
Best product as in they are going to charge for customer service. and since they the "techs" are not able to fix anything you have its selling again and again and be the "Best product"... for the company.
 
funny.... just this week i posted online about how wonderful they are... short version of my story is below:
Caution to you all to check your bill! @Comcast has been stealing from me for 7 months for modem rental fees (been on autopay and decided to look at the bills after it went up again $0.75 last month) but I OWN my own modem that I bought brand new retail (not refurbished) and they said it's their modem they gave me to rent and the Serial# and MAC address for MY MODEM is showing as owned by them and that I have to "PROVE IT's MINE". Apparently the receipt form Amazon.com inst enough. They also are charging me an extra $11/mo more than what they told me as i was on a 3 month promotion for "faster internet... aka BLAST!" and they never told me it was just a 3 mo promotion when they changed my plan. It was supposed to be included FREE, period, as part of my package. Those of you that know me know I dont mess with that kind of stuff... I NEVER do contracts on things... anyway they have no idea what they are doing... so far I have spoken to 6 people... one guy just asked why we were transferred to him if his dept cant fix it... tech support says that the billing dept has to fix my "modem deletion tool" ...billing says the Tech dept has to do it... OH MY GOODNESS!!! Comcast needs to give out stress relief balls with their logo on it as part of their welcome package... maybe include some blood pressure medication or at least a comcast voodoo doll.... I hate Comcast.
 
So they're going to slightly downgrade their internet so that it's worse than their customer service? :D
 
Gweenz said:
Yep, the most likely outcome of this is they will blame the company responsible for their customer service outsourcing, fire them, and hire a different company. Problem solved!
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Had a Comcast tech over to fix an issue a couple weeks ago. From the sound of it, you have nailed it exactly.
He said they are bringing the call centers back to the USA sometime in 2015. So, new vendor, yay.
 
"Service Will “Be Our Best Product”, which tells you how bad our products suck."
 
I would complain I have a lot to complain about but why? I am just another sucker who is stuck paying into their monopoly. Might as well just bend over and get it over with.
 
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