Comcast Reality Check: Comcastic is Bombastic Yet Hardly Fantastic

If you live in an area that cable television provider Comcast serves, you've likely been barraged with advertising for the company's new digital offerings. However, be wary of Comcast's promises if one of its representatives comes knocking on your door.

Last week, a gregarious Comcast representative rang my doorbell offering free digital boxes for our two televisions which he said would allow us to watch channels that we were paying for but had stopped receiving as well as access on-demand programming. Furthermore, he said the digital boxes would integrate perfectly with our TiVo system. Best of all, he promised that all this would come with no increase in our monthly cable bill. Momentarily, I forgot the maxim that "if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is" and agreed to the upgrade.

Today, a Comcast technician came to our house to install our new service. Things started off badly and got worse quickly. First, I was told that there were no guarantees that my TiVo system would work with the new digital box. In fact, he told me, "I don't know why our people promise so many things that can't be guaranteed." Second, he said that he had only one box with him since the person who created the work order had forgottent to put in the code for another box.Third, after installing the digital box, the framing of the image was distorted making it impossible to read the scrolling information on the bottom of the screen that has gotten so popular on television news. Fourth, when leaving, he asked me to sign a piece of paper approving his work and agreeing to a monthly price increase in our service. Since everything that the Comcast technician did contradicted what the Comcast sales representative told me, I refused to sign the work order and requested that the digital box be removed.

While the "Comcastic" advertising campaign has entertained me, I was sorely disappointed with what the company actually delivers. Instead of spending money touting "Comcastic" service, Comcast would be much better served concentrating on offering honest information and quality installations to engender satisfaction and positive buzz.

Comments

[Peter Winkler]

Comcast's negative reputation has spread so far in the city of Chicago, that many people are trying to avoid them as much as possible. If you drive around the city you'll see satellite dishes on almost every roof.

But not just their television devision is making negative news, also their Internet services have gotten them into the press. Comcast decided to throttle Internet traffic, especially for P2P services, without notifying their customers. For the longest time they denied allegations, until a case was filed with the FCC and they had to reveal their practices. This was one of the triggers for the House to introduce the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008".

I am really surprised how they can still stay in business with all that negative buzz.

[JOHN DIPIETRO www.johndipietro.typepad.com]

Your interaction with your cable company reflects ours with CHARTER in our area. I think that the cable companies have taken over the WORSE CUST SERVICE category from the phone companies.

[Patrick Galvin]

Buzz Builder Blog Readers,

Within two days of posting this negative account of my Comcast experience,I received an unsolicited phone call from one of the company's "digital care managers" asking for my details about the incident. He promised to follow up with my local Comcast office to find out what happened.

A few days later, a Comcast representative in Oregon called me to apologize about the misinformation and poor installation service I received. She said that Comcast would credit my account for one free month of service as a way to apologize for "any inconvenience that may have been caused."

Curious about this treatment, I went online and discovered that Comcast is very aggressive about patrolling what people say about the company on blogs. In fact, Comcast's "digital care" department is growing quickly to handle all the complaints that are posted on blogs. Many times, Comocast extend offers like the one I received to assuage irate bloggers. To learn more about Comcast's courtship of bloggers, read this fascinating 7/25/08 article in The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/technology/25comcast.html (make sure to read the wide array of reader reactions at the bottom of the article).

I commend Comcast for being proactive about responding to customers who take the time to complain about the company online. They have nothing to lose with this behavior and much to gain. Fair-minded bloggers will likely write about Comcast communicating with them and trying to resolve issues. Of course, you're seeing an example of this right now.

However, the real key for Comcast's success is to improve its customer service training to avoid negative blog posts and bad buzz in the first place.

Best,
Patrick Galvin

[Andrea Waltz]

Patrick,
Interesting stuff with the company running interference on the negative buzz. Your Buzz Bulletin was great this month, thanks for sharing all this!

[Joy Matkowski]

My husband had the same experience when he blogged about a miniature videocamera (with a 90-day warranty) he loved and then blogged again about his disgust when it stopped functioning at day 100.

Blog monitoring must be SOP these days.

[Joy Matkowski]

My husband had the same experience when he blogged about a miniature videocamera (with a 90-day warranty) he loved and then blogged again about his disgust when it stopped functioning at day 100.

Blog monitoring must be SOP these days.