Behind The Veil Part 4: Customer Trying To Cancel Service Is Put On Hold Until Comcast Office Closes
from the are-you-there? dept
Between trying to negotiate disputed charges with increased levels of internet service, releases of customer retention employee handbooks that are hella damning, and the release of a recording with a customer retention rep that alarmed even the most cynical of us, Comcast hasn't had an easy go of it lately. Two things have become pretty clear as these stories have rolled out to the public. First, thou shalt always record your conversations with Comcast reps (local/stupid two-party consent laws apply) or thou shalt be forever filled with regret. Second, Comcast really needs to change the way its customer service reps handle calls.And perhaps now we're seeing evidence that a change has indeed been implemented. Though, the process of simply putting cancelling customers on hold until the office closes probably won't win Comcast any brownie points.
That's Aaron Spain of Chicago (holla!), who waited on hold with Comcast about as long as it takes some people to run a marathon, three and a half hours. Upon notifying Comcast that he was trying to cancel his service, he was in fact put on hold long enough that the Comcast offices had closed while the elevator music continued to play. Aaron confirmed this by calling back into Comcast with a different phone and getting the automated message that all the people tasked with helping him cancel his service had gone home for the day.
Now, you might be wondering why someone would wait on hold for three and a half hours with Comcast to begin with. I like to think that Aaron saw this as some kind of completely idiotic test of wills between a megalithic corporation and himself, and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to win. Call it the Chicago spirit. Call it boredom. Call it the opportunity for a great YouTube video.
Whatever you call it, don't call Comcast about it, because they'll put you on hold until they leave for the day.
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Filed Under: broadband, cancellations, customer service
Companies: comcast
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report these issues
These need to be reported to the BBB, FCC and maybe FTC. This you tube issue is only getting lip service from Comcast.
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Re: report these issues
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Business_Bureau#Criticism
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Re: Re: report these issues
their 'process' for taking consumer complaints and acting on them is TOTALLY slanted to make it easy for the business to 'make them go away'... essentially, ALL the business has to do is LITERALLY 'reply' to the complaint (NOT promise any action, etc, SIMPLY RESPOND), and that complaint is then listed as 'resolved' (or whatever their bee-ess term is) and every body is happy, right ?
'cause when you have a complaint against a company, all you are looking for is a bullshit email that acknowledges the complaint, but doesn't do one thing to actually address the situation...
no, they are simply window-dressing, NOT a real means of redress for business complaints... don't bother...
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But we when we are here, you can't cancel your subscription
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Re:
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Re: Comcast
:/\ )
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I don't want to miss it.
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Re: I don't want to miss it.
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Re: Re: I don't want to miss it.
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Take it all the way
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Re: Take it all the way
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Re: Take it all the way
Comcast have swore and threatened customers on hundreds if not thousands of occasions, and each time when a complaint is filed they "oops can't find the recording".......
Comcast is a joke. If I was a shareholder my iceberg-sense would be tingling and I'd be leaving right before the special effects start....
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Re: Re: Take it all the way
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Use snail mail?
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Re: Use snail mail?
Can you (through your lawyer) ask for attorney's fees because it was necessary to take it this far?
Could you take it to small claims court to get the fees?
Be sure you have documentation of how many times, and how long you have waited on hold.
Also report it to the BBB, FTC and FCC, and your state AG.
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Re: Re: Use snail mail?
I wouldn't bother wasting my time with the BBB.
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Re: Re: Re: Use snail mail?
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Re: Use snail mail?
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We've had plenty of time to find out why these megacorps aren't doing any favors for the American infrastructure unless it lines their pockets. Every year is a new low compared to the rest of the world in prices, speed, quality, and service.
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Queue
Call Centres have call queues for each specific department. You don't leave the office until the queue is cleared. It is the specific job of the closing supervisor to ensure that the queue has been cleared before his final staff leave the office. A 3.5 hour queue is crazy, but I guarantee you that this is unintentional. Call Centres are 100% metric driven. Customer retention is important, but in the call centre universe Average Handle Time, Average Hold Time, First Time Resolutions, Average Idle Time, and a billion more stats are all up to the supervisor to manage.
This is a problem of poor call forecasting and staffing by Comcast's Workforce Analysts; not wilful neglect.
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Re: Queue
I would find your argument persuasive if it weren't for one single fact: this is Comcast we're talking about.
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Re: Queue
Reasearch indicates this is THE most effective customer retention tool we have!
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Re: Queue
At least your example isn't universal. I worked at a call centre for a telecom, and head office wouldn't of stood for mandatory OT like that. You might be in the queue for a transfer from another department, but at 5pm (or whenever they close), everyone logs off and you are SOL if you haven't already gotten through on the transfer.
At least that was my experience, but seriously, you think a telecom cares enough to pay OT for the small % of customers that are stuck in a transfer queue at the end of the day? Lol
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Re: Re: Queue
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Re: Queue
They do this with "complicated" customer queries, bill disputes and anything else that isn't actively bringing in cold hard cash.
Employees are also (with manager's condoning) allowed to just hang up on you if they have a break or lunch, and they do this a lot. 'Oops I 'lost' the call....' etc
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Re: Queue
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YA KNOW??
I would find this an equal opportunity recording session..
Also, in many states there is a law about HOW long they can/should keep you on hold..Without saying anything.
All they had to do was answer and ask that they call back tomorrow.
BUT ALSO..Many people WORK. and the hours do NOT mix with OTHER companies HOURS..so HOW do you solve this?? myselfm, I just goto TECH support..forget talking to Customer service.
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Re: YA KNOW??
You know who I've gone to and got results?
Sales.
When Sales realizes that Support/Retention could be costing them a customer, that's costing the sales bods actual monthly revenue. They move pretty fast to get things working for you again, and are usually bright enough to get your account closed out if you explain your problem -- as long as there's the hope you might re-subscribe in the future.
Sales tends to have the biggest pull in any corporation, and is the easiest route to go through to get to managers who don't have to follow a script verbatim or get fired.
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...report to the BBB...
Complaining to them does absolutely no good.
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Re: ...report to the BBB...
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Re: ...report to the BBB...
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Now, if you have proof of this systematically happening, you might have something. One guy who called and ended up on the hold look forever doesn't show anything except that perhaps he was too stupid to hang up and call back (or use the other phone he had to call back). Looks more like he was hoping for a way to show comcast off badly (it's not hard, it seems) rather than really accomplish anything.
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Combine it with everything else that Comcast is doing wrong in this avenue though, and it's that much less likely to be an accident.
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Re:
BULL-fucking-SHIT...
nearly EVERY korporate entity on the planet does EVERYTHING in their power to eliminate pesky, annoying customers calling in for anything BUT ORDERING MORE SHIT...
you want to 'upgrade', order new service, get a replacement, do ANYTHING that requires spending more money with them ? you can get through by phone, online, telepathy, etc IMMEDIATELY, from any of a million places that phone number is shown...
you want warranty service, tech support, find out why an order is late, etc, etc, etc ? ? ? forget about it: they hide the phone numbers, the emails go unanswered, the online chat is NEVER available, they make you go through phone menu hell, they put you on INTERMINABLE hold ALL THE FUCKING TIME, they bump you up levels repeating your pathetic story over and over, they play games, stall and fuck you over until you give up and go away...
you sign up for a service, and they don't ask for ONE DOG DAMN thing as any confirmation that you are you; however, you go to cancel that service, and suddenly you need 10 factor authentication, fax a copy of your birth certificate to a number that is busy, notarize your existence out the yingyang, provide fingerprints and retinal scans, and then they will proceed to 'lose' all that shit but not bother to tell you for six months when you find a ding on your credit rating for some 'unpaid debt' you never knew about...
fuck you whatever, and your authoritarian, Empire toadying, pro-bidness idiocy...
oh, and a coward to boot... what a lousy excuse for a human bean... the saving grace is, you are such an obvious shillbot, NO ONE takes you seriously... POS...
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Re: Re:
BULL-fucking-SHIT...
nearly EVERY korporate entity on the planet does EVERYTHING in their power to eliminate pesky, annoying customers calling in for anything BUT ORDERING MORE SHIT...
I would hate to live in your world, full of hate and loathing.
You can keep your adhoms for your momma.
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They have teams dedicated to ensuring that their processing times for emails are met simply by processing those that may be requesting to BUY something go into a separate filter.
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Agreed. It could have been a glitch. Unfortunately because of their track record, even the occasional technical glitch will look like incompetence. They did it to themselves.
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Just comcast? No all.
You need to record ALL of your life so you can use it VS others who try to screw you.
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Re: Just comcast? No all.
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Mess with their call center stats
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I *AM* a workforce Analyst
Oh, and excusing this due to "fat fingering" something? Yeah, that's like excusing the overreaction of the police in Ferguson because TERRORISM! A convenient excuse, but not very likely.
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Re: I *AM* a workforce Analyst
Damn. Your team should work for more places. I can't remember a time when I've called a major company that I've been on hold for less than 15 minutes, let alone 5. Except if I'm calling a sales number, of course -- mysteriously, those go right through.
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Re: I *AM* a workforce Analyst
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Then come back to the advisor and (in an obviously fake robo-voice) announce loudly that your house is now closed.
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Very Simple Solution To This Sort Of Thing
Perhaps there was once a time when small businesses could compete with Comcast-sized businesses on the basis of offering a superior customer service experience. But what Clark Howard calls "Customer No-Service" obviously doesn't affect Comcast's bottom line enough for it to feel any threat from competition.
But this situation represents a breakdown in the free market system, whose whole social justification is that it (a.) allows people to interact through free exchange instead of compulsion; and (b.) transmits pricing information and product quality information so efficiently that competition results, driving down prices or increasing quality, thereby maximizing the buyer's bang-for-the-buck.
How do we fix it?
Pretty easy, actually.
There ought to be "progressive" income taxes on businesses in much the same way as on private individuals, with top rates sufficient to produce significant turnover in the businesses holding the largest percentage market shares...and 0% rates on the smallest entrants in the market.
Currently, Comcast is inured from competition because it can "buy" a favorable regulatory environment: Not "no regulations"; mind you, but regulations which are sufficiently arduous that small businesses can't jump through all the compliance hoops and still run their business. All small up-and-coming competition is thereby squashed by barriers to entry.
But if the up-and-coming competition paid no taxes and Comcast paid significant taxes, then you'd quickly see competitors stealing market share...only to find their own taxes rising if they got too big for their britches.
Better to have a dozen smaller cable companies squabbling over your neighborhood's business, than one neighborhood monopoly!
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Comcast
I never really felt that guilty about it. But now - I feel no guilt at all.
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Comcast
I won't go into my details other than I shifted my TV service to Direct TV (excellent customer service) and my internet to my phone company (DSL - slower, but far, far more reliable).
There was a website comcastmustdie.com , it may still be active. It had hundreds of cases just like the one above. Apparently Comcast got wind of it and picked two posters, one in NYC and the other in DC. With these two they played very nice, then contacted the NY Times and the Washington Post with their stories. Both papers ran glowing pieces on their experiences. The glow wore off shortly after as Comcast reverted to form.
The cable companies are losing market share to the phone companies. By and large they are giving a better product, especially Verizon with their FIOS service.
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