Public Relations is NOT Equivalent to Customer Service.
Fire “Executive Vice President of Customer Experience” Charlie Herrin; Invest his salary in fixing the massive technical incapacities plaguing your system.
In our last two episodes Comcast had screwed the pooch on the rollout of its inanely branded X-1 “platform”—an overhyped DVR/set-top box so bug infested it should have been sold with a complimentary can of Raid—and was suffering a shitstorm of complaints about its apparent role in widespread service interruptions. Just weeks later, Comcast was reeling again from widespread, unexplained outages all along the I-95 corridor from DC to NY.
Since then, the entire cable industry was dealt a huge blow by the Obama Administration’s recategorization of cable providers to treat them as public utilities (as they always should have been given the value of the easements they have received for running cable and the monopoly status they enjoy in most communities each company “serves”, and the severe disadvantage suffered be people or communities who cannot access broadband services). And Comcast in particular was publicly bitchslapped when regulators nixed a deal Comcast had put big muscle behind in their effort to acquire the second worst cable provider on earth: Time Warner Cable (Comcast itself holding the number one spot). Among the reasons cited for putting the stop on this proposed marriage made in the 3rd, 4th, and 8th circles of Hell, was the incredibly poor service record of the two would-be spouses.
But did this blow to its plans for market hegemony make Comcast’s corporate weenie get all puckered and shriveled? Hell no! Faced with a defeat not unlike the GOP was dealt in 2008, Comcast took a page from the RNC playbook and took a good hard look in the mirror (apparently to see if, through tough self-examination and coldly critical autopsy, it could somehow gain insight into what millions of people had been saying directly to them for years: You suck, Comcast, You don’t deliver on anything that matters. You suck!)
And like the GOP, Comcast went directly at the heart of the problem-solving puzzle: It developed a (wait for it…) PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGN!
Using the best minds in their lavishly populated corporate stable of fencepost stupid executives, Comcast decided that offering the “fastest cable speeds in the industry” (if you leave out of the averaging all those hours of zero up/zero down that happen when the company experiences “outages”, which is roughly one in any week that has a day in it) is not enough for its customers.[1]
So, over the past several months Comcast has made several important announcements meant to show its “customers” it is working on improving the Comcast Customer Experience®.
- Last September, Comcast Cable president and CEO Neil Smit acknowledged Comcast’s customer service problems (perhaps while taking lunch in the executive dining lounge Neil spotted some footage of local Comcast offices coming under siege by mobs of angry villagers brandishing torches and hay rakes), “Over the last few years, we’ve been incredibly focused on product innovation and delivering great technology experiences…But…the way we interact with our customers – on the phone, online, in their homes – is as important to our success as the technology we provide.” In other words, Comcast has been so busy innovating for you, that it has let you down when you call for service. Unfortunately, non of that “product innovation” or “great technology” has made it any less necessary to have to call the friggin’ lousy customer service line in the first place. Here’s a thought, Neil, maybe reducing the number of events that require customers to reach out for service complaints and help in the first place would greatly improve the overall Comcast “customer experience” for everybody!
- Just a few days ago, Comcast publicized a tough new service goal: by the third quarter of this year, its technicians are to be “always on time for customer appointments.” Always. So what’s the fucking standard now? Half the appointments? A few appointments a week will be on time? Oh, and this new tougher standard will be backed by a guarantee: if a technician is late, a customer will get a $20 credit. Okay, so two things on this: (A) I have had Comcast technicians be as much as two days late for an appointment. Even if they are only 3 hours late (which, honest to god, I’ve been grateful when some grunting misanthrope with a pair of pliers and half a roll of wrinkled tape shows up from Comcast only 3 hours late), you’re telling me I’m getting less than minimum wage from Comcast for sitting around because some office dink egregiously overbooked a technician who is now having a stroke because he’s backed up three appointments while the current party tries to figure out where the cable modem can go without spoiling the Cracker Barrel country decor in the living room? (B) Why am I fairly certain that regional managers with short budgets for technicians will calculate the cost of increasing the workforce against the amount it will cost to pay out 20 bucks a dozen or so times a month for missed appointments.
- Just this part April Fools Day, for instance, Comcast announced the promotion of Charlie Herrin from his position as senior VP of customer experience to executive VP of customer experience (no doubt as a reward his role in helping Comcast tie for for dead last in customer satisfaction ratings with its would-be fuck-buddy TWC–according to JD Power & Associates [2]) along with 19 other executive promotions made that day. (Oddly, customers noted no perceptible improvements in cable or internet performance resulting from this bold step.)
- This month in Chicago Comcast unveiled its new “Studio Xfinity” a prototype makeover for what it hopes will be the model for all its local sales offices (right now it is only “a new concept in the testing stage”). The aim is to create a new kind of cable office with “gadgets displayed and demonstrated with the utmost enticement.” (That should make getting your fucked up cable bill over-charges straightened out a much improved customer experience!)
- Also this month, Comcast Corporation CEO Brian Roberts [3] proclaimed, “Our products weren’t getting some of the excitement they deserved because you were waiting on hold on the phone or we missed an appointment.” Yep. The Comcast executive team has certainly zeroed in on the reason it is one of the two “most hated companies in America” (the other being TWC): We’re missing all the excitement of Comcast innovations while we’re on the phone just trying to get the fucking TV to show TV shows.
NONE of this is suggests actual effort to fix their crappy, unreliable, unconscionably expensive “service”. It’s all PR. FIX YOUR SHIT SO MY FUCKING CABLE DOESN’T TAKE AT LEAST A TWO-HOUR CRAP AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK. And give me at least the internet speed I would get FOR FUCKING FREE at an internet cafe in goddam Estonia! FIX IT!
In case it wasn’t obvious, my cable has been out again today. All I really wanted was reliable internet service. At the speeds I pay Comcast for. Or at least something than the 0/0 I got for most of the day today.
That and some TV. I am almost 58 years old. For almost 50 of those years TV watching has pretty simple. Bag of chips. Soft drink or beer. Couch. Switch on. TV show. Repeat until unconsciousness or slightly glowing translucent greenish TV pallor is achieved. Whichever comes first
I specifically don’t seek excitement when I sit in front of the goddamn BOOB tube. In fact I kinda want the polar opposite of an “exciting customer experience.” For exciting customer experience, I’ll go get another speeding ticket. Or take up scuba diving. Or go pay for a boilermaker and a lap dance.
[1] Comcast subscribers, usually having zero to one other option for cable providers in their area, are not so much “customers” as “hopelessly captive livestock to be bled until they turn to dust.”
[2] Seriously? JD Power? You know who JD Power & Associates is, right? You know, when you see a car commercial about some new model that looks like every other fucking $13,000 car made for the last five years and the voice-over says something like “ranked number one not-too-horrible-to-rent macro-sub-sport-utility-leisure-family-midsize-compact-touring-towne-and-country-urban-mini-yellowpainted-front-wheel-chain-drive-centrifugal-double-fan-cooled-non-turbo-synthetic-diesel-fueled-twin-under-wheelhub-suspended-para-automobile by 37 coeds we asked at an Ann Arbor bar crawl last Tuesday, according to JD Power & Associates”? Yeah! That JD Power! Those guys! Right?! Like, the company that exists just to create micro categories so that every product they are paid to “rate” can be number 1 in something? Even they dumped on Comcast like a Nebraska farmer after eating the El Grande Burrito Platter at Poncho’s Tex-Mex Diner and Nail Salon out on the interstate.
[3] Not to be confused with Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit. (The Vatican’s seating chart for a papal looks like a model of Amish austerity compared to Comcast’s org-report-chart. Unraveling the slimy tangled web of leftovers in the dumpster behind your local Old Spaghetti Factory after all-you-can-eat-night would be simpler…and less nauseating.)
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