Comcast end story

I know everyone is getting tired of hearing about the botched Comcast install in my new place so after this post I will drop it and get back to mobile tech coverage.  I promise.  The story has attracted the interest of many and the comments have been varied about the entire saga.  I wanted to bring closure to this situation and I must admit that based on the comments that have been left on the posts as the situation went down have pretty much left me in a no-win situation, as it should.  There are those who feel that I should not bash Comcast for poor customer service since they stepped in and fixed my problem so quickly, albeit with admitted special treatment, and there are those who feel I should bash them greatly for requiring special treatment to get the customer service that should have been delivered standardly.  Both camps are valid in this case, it’s one of those rare situations when both viewpoints are absolutely correct.

The whole point of my originally posting about my troubles with the Comcast install was not to get special treatment, it was to make sure that those who visit our little mobile tech blog were informed about how Comcast does business.  What set me off was not that they had scheduled a service call and then didn’t show up, while aggravating that’s often a reality in the business world.  People over-commit all the time.  No, the flames of my anger were stoked based on the way I was treated by the Comcast customer support people I talked to on the phone about it.  Every time I spoke with them, and I did so several times, I was given a different answer about the situation.  That culminated in the assertion by a customer support rep that their failure to appear was MY fault for not being here when they arrived.  Forget the fact that there were three people in my house waiting for them to show up all day.  Forget that if they had indeed shown up and found no one home that they left no indication on the door that they were here.  Forget the fact that I was told in earlier phone calls that they were running late and would be there later, even though they eventually told me they had found no one home hours earlier. 

I have stated before and I’ll state it again for Comcast and every company that deals directly with the public- do not lie to your customers ever.  There are few things you can do that will get your customers ire up faster than lying to them.  Customers are not stupid as a rule, they just want what they are paying or have paid for.  Lying serves no purpose for either you or the customer.  Telling me that the technicians had shown up when I knew for a fact they had not was not good business practice.  This is deplorable and a quick look around the internet finds dozens of similar stories about Comcast all over the country.  This proves beyond a doubt that you have a severe problem with customer support, Comcast, and I hope you address it.

Now I fully realize that the rapid resolution to my problem was not typical and that is a mixed bag for me.  Sure I am happy that Comcast stepped up and fixed my problem.  I’d be lying if I said otherwise.  But I do feel that it requiring special circumstances to be brought to their attention is sad and that their customers should be aware of it.  As a customer with a problem like this I will do whatever within my power to try and get proper resolution and this was no different.  I blogged it here not expecting anyone from Comcast to see it but to at least vent a little and let our readers know about it so they are aware of Comcast’s business practices.  Blogging it was no different than all the phone calls I made to them about it, I did and will always do everything in my power to try and get resolution.  I depend on Internet access to make a living and I reacted accordingly.  I would do it again in a heartbeat.

The actual way that Comcast found out about my situation is very interesting and something that can help anyone with similar problems to mine.  One of our readers here, and I regret I don’t know who it was, did something that brought my blog post about it to the attention of the customer service people of Comcast.  Frank Eliason is a customer service executive for Comcast and he has been running a Twitter account called comcastcares for months.  The whole purpose of this Twitter account is so Comcast customers can post a Tweet to comcastcares about it.  Frank monitors this activity constantly and if you watch it for a while, and I did a lot yesterday, you’ll see him often stepping in and getting people who need it the attention from those at Comcast that matter.  This happened yesterday for me and within an hour of the blog post being brought to his attention via Twitter I received a phone call from his staff promising rapid resolution.  This is what brought the technicians to my house at 5 pm yesterday and I thank Frank and his staff for stepping up to the plate, albeit too late in the problem cycle.  I appreciate the effort here and at least Comcast is letting him do this to good result.

So that’s how this went down and if confronted with a similar situation in the future I’ll do everything I did once again.  Comcast needs to get control of their customer service practices and do the customer right.  They will continue to have PR nightmares until they do so.  Jumping on my situation as Comcast did was good for me but was too late in the cycle.  I appreciate the effort that happened at the end of course but it should never have reached that point to begin with.  I do want to thank the two technicians who provided the service last night for the great job that they did.  They had simply been told that my install had been missed and that they needed to get it done and that’s what they did.  They were professional and worked very hard after hours to get the job done and I thank them for that.

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