Comcast really cares

Three weeks ago I was at Web2.0Expo in NYC, where I attended mostly the marketing sessions. Few of the sessions were about customer support, all quite interesting, but one story just struck into my mind. It was the Comcast story. The presenter, Lane Becker from GetSatisfaction.com, started with the question: “How many of you use Comcast?” Almost everybody lifted their hand. “And how many of you hate Comcast?”, he continued. Almost everybody who used Comcast lifted their hand. Of course, I lifted my hand twice.

Some history. Several months before that I did some cabling in my house (I bought 30 years old house and still remodeling it:)) and few weeks after I noticed, that on weekend evenings I couldn’t get the on-demand service to work. On the next morning everything is fine but in the evening the issue appears again. It seems the problem was with sending the signal back to Comcast to request movie information or the guide. Internet was working properly and for me there was no reason on-demand service not to work. I called Comcast several times; they’ve reset the box few times but nothing. One more issue was that HD programs were also not received properly in the evening – losing sound and bad picture. It was clearly bandwidth issue. Comcast sent a technician who replaced couple of splitters and confirmed that everything is OK (of course, while he was in the house everything was working fine). Nothing changed again - in the evening I encountered the same problem. On top of that the hard drive in the box broke and I lost all my recordings. With all my frustration I called Comcast one last time and told them I will cancel the service if the problem is not solved. They replaced the box and send another technician who replaced my attenuator from Leviton. All good but in the evening… guess what… no service again. However after restarting the box I was able to watch movies without anymore problems. The next issue I encountered was with the new DVR – very often when I switch the resolution from HD to normal or reverse I lose signal to the TV. The only thing that helps is to restart the DVR (I mean the hard way - unplug its power cable) but then I lose the guide and need to wait 30-40 mins to get it back.

After I learned from Lane about @comcastcares I decided to give it a try. This is a team of few people (5 as far as I know) in Comcast who provide alternative way to support their customers - through Twitter. The guy named Frank was very responsive. He suggested changing bunch of settings and looked at my account. No improvement so far but this is not my point. Just knowing that there is person on the other side that listens to me, understands my problems and tries to help me, makes me feel better - it gives me confidence that my issue will be resolved. Few days ago I even got a phone call from Customer Service representative to ask me whether I solved my problem. Comcast is great example how companies that think about their customers can change the perception and turn things around. The experience I had with Frank is worth thousand times more for Comcast than any IVR investment - it is cheap, it is according to my schedule and more important, it made me feel valued as customer.

Of course it is not the technology they use to provide support. I think the important piece here is the person on the other side. Doesn't matter whether it is a phone, chat, e-mail or snail mail - treat your customers individually, listen to them and learn from them. This way the advantage will come to your side.