Yet Another Horrible Comcast Customer Service Experience Goes Viral

from the time-to-trot-out-that-new-customer-service-vp-again dept

Comcast's customer service troubles are well documented, with bad customer service experiences going viral every few months, requiring Comcast CEO Brian Roberts to trot out of his corner office to promise to do better. Just a few months ago, Comcast also excitedly hired a new "Senior VP of Customer Experience," named Neil Smit Charlie Herrin. I hope Herrin wasn't taking an extended vacation for the holidays, because just in time for New Year's, yet another horrific customer experience situation has gone viral via Reddit. The whole thing is nicely explained in this 11-and-a-half-minute video in which the guy in question not only records the recent call with Comcast, but also plays back clips from his August calls detailing the promises that were made that Comcast will no longer abide by: If you don't feel like watching the video -- the short version is that in August, when the guy threatened to take his broadband business elsewhere, a Comcast representative promised him a no contract deal for 100 Mbps down/25 Mbps up for $53.85 after all taxes and fees. Yet, each month his bills keep getting higher and higher, and further and further away from $53.85. Here's one example: The customer service person from this week tells him that the promotional rate he was given (which, again, wasn't actually followed) was only for three months, even though he has a recording in which the rep in August clearly says it's a 12-month rate after taxes. In fact, the earlier rep "guarantees that your price won't change for 12 months" and that it's "$53.85 which is really good because that's after taxes and everything." ALL of that is on the recording he has.

As the guy notes, even though he had the earlier call recorded, a Comcast customer "shouldn't have to record every interaction" with Comcast customer service just to get the company to live up to its own promises.

But, of course, it doesn't matter. The customer service rep this week insists that what the original person told him was simply incorrect, and she no longer has access to that kind of promotion. Towards the end of the call, however, she offers him a different promotion for 12 months (this is a little unclear, because at one point she says until October), and he points out that this new rep is making the exact same kind of promise -- of a certain price for 12 months -- which is pretty ridiculous since he knows he can't trust it.

As the story started getting more and more attention, someone from "Comcast Executive Customer Relations" called the guy, but refused to consent to being recorded -- so the customer refused to continue with the call. That person eventually emailed him, and appears to offer to extend the original deal for another 9 months, but it's still not entirely clear -- and no matter what, it's ridiculous that any customer should need to go through this sort of process.

I'm sure that should this story go even more viral, Brian Roberts and Charlie Herrin will emerge from wherever they're hiding to act contrite and insist that this sort of thing is unacceptable, but that's clearly not true. And, no, it's not -- as Roberts likes to insist -- because the company is so large and has so many customers. These sorts of failings happen so regularly that it is clearly part of the corporate culture to lie and abuse customers. This is just the latest example, which looks especially bad given the fact that both calls were recorded.

Update: We, originally, accidentally said that Smit was the new hire for customer experience, but it was actually Charlie Herrin. Smit is Herrin's boss.

Filed Under: customer service
Companies: comcast

Comcast Lobbyists Give Lawmakers Golden Tickets: Secret Phone Numbers To Reach Good Customer Service

from the giving-a-damn-is-a-special-perk-just-for-you dept

Comcast has certainly been pulling out all the stops to get its $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable approved by regulators. That has involved calling everyone who opposes the merger ignorant and unreasonable, paying minority groups to parrot the company's positions, and generally repeatedly denying all of the competitive and monopsony concerns raised by deal critics. All while the company's top lobbyist, David Cohen, busily dodges lobbying rules by pretending he's not actually lobbying (he seriously calls himself the company's "Chief Diversity Officer").

Comcast has employed some forty lobbying firms to court DC politicians, and offered up cash donations to 32 of the 39 members of the House Judiciary Committee that recently held hearings on the merger. In a piece exploring how David Gregory lost his job on "Meet The Press," (and the rise of Comcast's David Cohen as a K Street powerhouse) the Washingtonian points out that Comcast lobbyists have also been busy handing out special "VIP cards" to DC lawmakers. These cards feature a single-use phone number that will prioritize your customer support call:

"Comcast also had an even more personal way of sucking up to Washington. Its government-affairs team carried around “We’ll make it right” cards stamped with “priority assistance” codes for fast-tracking help and handed them out to congressional staffers, journalists, and other influential Washingtonians who complained about their service. A Comcast spokeswoman says this practice isn’t exclusive to DC; every Comcast employee receives the cards, which they can distribute to any customer with cable or internet trouble. Nevertheless, efforts like this one have surely helped Comcast boost its standing inside the Beltway and improve its chances of winning regulatory approval for its next big conquest: merging with the second-largest cable provider in the country, Time Warner Cable."

Comcast's customer service is, as we've noted a few times, historically awful. As in, surveys show it's worse than nearly any other company in any other industry, which is no small feat. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts frequently complains that this is simply because the company's so large, and that statistically you're simply going to have a lot of squeaky wheels. So amusingly, in addition to throwing cash at DC lawmakers, Comcast is using actually giving a damn about your customers (or the illusion of giving a damn, as Comcast employees tell me these cards are common and don't actually do all that much) as a "special perk" you can only get if you're immeasurably annoyed with the company -- or a DC lobbyist that can help it out.

What's the over/under on a larger Comcast someday waking up and realizing that the company should focus on giving everybody decent customer service?

Filed Under: customer service, david cohen, lawmakers, lobbying, lobbyists, merger, policymakers, vip
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

DailyDirt: Avoid Crowdfunding Scams

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some crowdfunding projects are really impressive and have gotten a lot of attention and praise that is well deserved. However, there are also quite a few projects that haven't quite lived up to their promise. It's disappointing to say the least when a project gets over a million bucks and still fails to deliver a working product to its backers. Some backers get upset when their favorite crowdfunded project sells out to Facebook. How can companies like Kickstarter and Indiegogo and the like deal with these problems? There might be escrow schemes or insurance policies that could help, but in the end, it seems like buyer beware is the ultimate answer. Here are just a few links on this situation of dealing with crowdfunding disappointments and outright scams.

• Indiegogo is trying out an optional insurance feature that would provide a refund if the project fails to deliver its product within 3 months of its estimated delivery date. So far, this insurance policy is in testing and costs $15, so it doesn't apply to every (or even many) campaign on Indiegogo, but it's an interesting way to provide backers with some kind of guarantee that their faith/money is not being completely misplaced. However, it looks like only 3 people have tried it, and we'll have to wait until early 2016 to see if those folks will qualify for a insurance claim. [url]
• Kickstarter is generally seen as dominant crowdfunding platform, and the company behind it wants to be known as a responsible corporation. Will being named a Certified B Corporation boost Kickstarters reputation at all? Or will its certification simply be taken away if more backers are dissatisfied when projects don't deliver as promised? [url]
• It's not hard to find crowdfunding projects that just won't work.. because physics or the second law of thermodynamics. Maybe crowdfunding platforms need to crowdsource some peer review for a project approval process? [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: buyer beware, certified b corporation, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, customer service, escrow, insurance, reputation, scams
Companies: indiegogo, kickstarter

Comcast CEO Still Pretending His Company's Horrible Satisfaction Ratings Are Just A Normal Part Of Being So Huge

from the King-Kong-was-simply-misunderstood dept

As we've noted before, Comcast has not only the worst customer satisfaction ratings in the telecom industry, but among the worst customer satisfaction ratings across all industries. The reasons for this are not complicated: the company grew like wildfire through acquisitions, then made a habit of skimping when it came to customer support and subcontracted installation technicians. The result is a never ending parade of ridiculous stories involving poorly trained or under-funded Comcast employees doing something aggressive, pathetic, or downright abusive.

Every six months or so like clockwork Comcast CEO Brian Roberts will come forward with his hat in hand and a puppy-dog look on his face, promising that the company has heard the public's concerns and is doing everything possible to fix things. While the press has fixated on Comcast lately because of the Time Warner Cable merger, this has been going on for most of the last decade.

During one of these episodes about a year ago, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts came forward to insist the company was working really hard on improving customer service, but that the problem was really a matter of scale. To hear Roberts tell it, the company only really sees such a heavy volume of complaints because Comcast itself is just so huge:

"What unfortunately happens is we have about … 350 million interactions with consumers a year, between phone calls and truck calls. It may be over 400 million and that doesn't count any online interactions which I think is over a billion. You get one-tenth of one-percent bad experience, that's a lot of people..."

Fast-forward nearly a year to just last week, and Roberts was once again back in the public eye, professing to be "embarrassed" (he really, really means it this time) about the company's 2014 iteration of its annual customer service scandal:

"At an event in San Francisco, Roberts said that he was “embarrassed” and “disappointed” when he heard the recording. “It was a teachable moment for employees and it was a teachable moment for all of us,” he said...Still, the Comcast CEO maintained that such customer service nightmares are not the norm. “We get 250 million phone calls a year,” he said. “The nature of our business is that we’re going to have these things."

Except again, awful customer service at Comcast is absolutely the norm. These aren't just anecdotal squeaky wheels. Every single customer satisfaction survey, whether its J.D. Power & Associates, Consumer Reports, the American Customer Satisfaction Index, the YouGov Brand Index or the less scientific Consumerist Worst Company in America Awards have made this abundantly clear: Comcast is among the very worst companies in America at customer service. Period. This hasn't changed because Comcast has no meaningful competitive incentive to change, and therefore simply refuses to spend the money necessary to fix the problem.

Continuing to pretend that the problem is a matter of scale simply doesn't cut it as an excuse. Worse, if "these problems happen when you're big" is really the explanation the CEO wants to keep falling back on, what happens when the company's $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable gets approved?

Filed Under: brian roberts, customer satisfaction, customer service, scale
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

Behind the Veil Part 6: Comcast Informs Employer Of Complaining Customer

from the screw-job dept

In case you thought the stream of complaints from former and current Comcast customers and employees had ceased, they haven't. With all the fallout surrounding several customer service flops, you'd think that the company would be particularly on its toes in terms of building up good will and avoiding more such stories. The latest story, however, is quite a doozy: it is alleged that Comcast contacted a complaining subscriber's place of business, which resulted in him being fired.

Let's get the service issues out of the way first. Over the course of a year, a man named Conal had had near-constant issues with his Comcast service: everything from being charged for hardware he'd never ordered, sent hardware he never wanted, not getting bills because Comcast misspelled his last name, service visits that failed to activate set-top boxes, and increases in pricing. He attempted to work with Comcast's customer service, at one point asking to cancel service, but instead being sold on free upgrades to keep his business (AKA, the Comcast customer service MO). Eventually, fed up, he returned all the equipment that had actually been delivered to him and, because he is an accountant, prepared a spreadsheet with all the incorrect charges and service issues. Instead of rectifying the charges, Comcast immediately sent his account to collections, despite the fact that the charges weren't past due. When customer service failed to address any of the above, he decided to go above them entirely and called the office of Comcast's Controller. After getting a call back from another customer service rep instead, he called the Controller's office again.

During this call, he says that he mentioned that Comcast’s billing and accounting issues should probably be investigated by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a private-sector oversight operation. This ultimately led to two service calls where no one ever showed up and no explanations were given. But something did happen. Just not anything good.

That not good action by Comcast was for someone to put a call into a partner at Conal's accounting firm. The Comcast employee suggested that Conal had name-dropped the accounting firm as a way to get better service, since the accounting firm had done some minor work for Comcast in the past. This led to the company investigating the situation for ethical violations by Conal and ultimately firing him due to, according to his exit interview, a summary of his communications with Comcast provided directly by Comcast. Conal was never allowed to see the summary, nor were his requests for recorded conversations ever honored. Comcast even acknowledges calling the employer.

In response to a letter from Conal’s lawyer — he has not filed a lawsuit, but it’s not out of the question — Comcast’s Senior Deputy General Counsel admits that the company did contact Conal’s employer but says that Conal “is not in a position to complain that the firm came to learn” about his dispute with Comcast.

Well, okay then. Look, this is a one-sided report form a clearly-jilted ex-customer of Comcast's, so it might be quite easy to dismiss it as unreliable. And, hey, there's a chance we're not getting the whole story here. On the other hand: Comcast. The way the company has conducted business, particularly over the past few years, lends itself to being criticized and to the assumption that these kinds of stories are more true than false. Does anyone really believe the company is incapable of doing exactly as Conal accuses? I sure don't, because I've been paying attention to the Comcast stories we've written about in the past. And the company's tone-deaf responses to these issues don't help either.

We reached out to Comcast to ask whether it’s company policy to contact customers’ employers. No one answered that question, but a rep for Comcast did give a brief statement.

“Our customers deserve the best experience every time they interact with us,” reads the statement. Comcast says it has previously apologized to Conal, but adds “we will review his lawyer’s letter and respond as quickly as possible.”

Yawn. Thanks Comcast. I'm sure we'll be seeing you again in a future post.

Finally, after the story started to go viral, Comcast put up a public apology blog post:

What happened with Mr. O’Rourke's service is completely unacceptable. Despite our attempts to address Mr. O’Rourke’s issues, we simply dropped the ball and did not make things right. Mr. O’Rourke deserves another apology from us and we’re making this one publicly. We also want to clarify that nobody at Comcast asked for him to be fired.

We’re also determined to get to the bottom of exactly what happened with his service, figure out what went wrong at every point along the way, and fix any underlying issues

This is from Comcast's brand spanking new VP of Customer Experience. Perhaps the title they should have given him is Chief Apologizer.

Filed Under: customer service
Companies: comcast

Apparently The Reason Comcast Has Crappy Customer Service Is Because It Was Lacking A 'Customer Experience' VP

from the now-that-that's-been-solved... dept

Comcast is notorious for its terrible customer service. It's not hard to find story after story after story after story after story after story about Comcast's customer service failures. And those are all just from the past three months (and we skip over plenty of those stories as well). It's gone on for years. It's why Comcast keeps winning the Worst Company in America award.

Every time these things happen, some top exec from Comcast comes out of his or her cave to tell us that these things are unacceptable and will change. As Karl Bode at Broadband Reports sums up, it's becoming like clockwork:

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts emerges every six months and makes a promise to fix things, though it's always with a dismissive attitude. It's because we're so big that we see so many complaints, he'll say, as if every other major company has employees consistently making the news for falling asleep at customer homes, murder, digging in the wrong yard blowing up laptops, dishwashers or homes -- or even animal cruelty.

But, apparently that's all over now. You know what was missing? A "Senior VP of Customer Experience" and now Comcast's got itself one of those:

The latest seemingly bi-annual promise to fix their abysmal customer satisfaction ratings comes via Comcast Executive VP Neil Smit, who in a blog post informs us that Comcast has hired Charlie Herrin to be the company's new "Senior VP of Customer Experience." Herrin will, according to Smit, "reimagine the customer experience and ensure that we are delighting our customers at each touch point."

"Over the last few years, we’ve been incredibly focused on product innovation and delivering great content and technology experiences," insists Smit. "But this is only one half of the customer experience equation. The other half is operational excellence in how we deliver service. 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."

That's an interesting rewriting of history. The reality, of course, is that while Comcast has improved speeds, it's spent an awful lot of its time over the past few years on buying up companies and getting regulatory approval to grow its monopolistic appetite. And, it seems noteworthy that each time Comcast tries to do a big merger, part of the rationale presented is that this will somehow improve the customer experience. And yet, now they're more or less admitting that was never actually true.

Furthermore, what giant monopolistic provider of service do you know that has a reputation for providing good customer service? Competition leads to both innovations and good customer service, and that's not something that Comcast really faces anywhere these days. A VP of Customer Experience isn't likely to change that

Filed Under: charlie herrin, customer experience, customer service, neil smit, reputation
Companies: comcast

Behind The Veil Part 5: Comcast Metrics For All Employees As Simple As ABC, Always Be Closing

from the anybody-but-comcast dept

In the ongoing fallout Comcast is facing due to the high-pressure sales tactics of their non-sales employees, the company has consistently indicated that these employees are not behaving in a manner consistent with the company's wishes. The common thread in most of these stories consists of customer service duties being handled by customer retention reps as often as not and complaints or attempts to cancel service being met with sales pitches instead of service. Comcast has specifically indicated that these examples are outside of the way they train employees to conduct their business.

Comcast, as it turns out, is completely full of shit. The latest reveal via past and current Comcast employees spilling their guts to The Verge is all about employee metrics. And it seems that Comcast sees everyone as part of the sales team.

Guidelines for repair reps, which show how a trouble call can be segued into a sales call, are part of S4, Comcast's "universal call flow." S4 is an evaluative measurement to ensure that all agents "give every customer a great call experience every time." It stands for: start, solve, sell, summarize. Part S3, or "sell," includes four parts: "transition to relevant offer," "present offer," "overcome objections," and "proactively close sale."

That's not even a retention rep being trained in that document; it's a repair tech. Because, hey, the thing I most want when Comcast's service is failing is the person fixing it to sell me more of that failing service. This is the kind of pressure tactics that lead repair calls down the dark path to an angry customer who likely subsequently finds out that Comcast has a monopoly on service in their area. Where are my free-market conservative friends on this stuff? This is supposed to be in your wheelhouse!

It doesn't get any better for customer service reps.

Similarly, a scorecard for customer service reps in the Pennsylvania area shows that sales are explicitly worth 18 percent of an agent's performance. Sales are measured again in the general customer service "Pinnacle" metric, which is worth 27 percent. An excerpt from the Pinnacle guidelines says "Sales/Conversion" is one of eight categories measured in an employee's interaction with a customer.

A fifth of a customer service reps performance is judged on their salesmanship. Let that sink in for a moment and then remind yourself of this fact the next time you call for a complaint or help with your service. That person you're speaking to is being judged on whether they can sell you on something when they're supposed to be helping you.

You can see the full dump of the metrics documents here, but don't eat much before you go looking. You may not be able to keep your meal down.

Filed Under: broadband, customer service, selling, upsell
Companies: comcast

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.

Filed Under: broadband, cancellations, customer service
Companies: comcast

Behind The Veil Part 3: Comcast Rep Confirms That You Should Always Record Customer Service Calls

from the we're-listening dept

As you probably know by now, Comcast has been in the news quite a bit lately for all the wrong reasons. It started with a recorded call of one Comcast customer attempting to cancel his service before being passed over to a "customer retention" representative who had watched entirely too much Boiler Room. Comcast made a great deal of noise about how this wasn't how they told their reps to conduct their business, which, thanks to the Verge's call for input from past and current Comcast employees, was shown pretty conclusively to a complete lie. It's been a pretty, nice, little lesson in why breeding the kind of monopoly that Comcast tends to hold in many areas of this country is a really crappy idea. The other lesson that this should be teaching all of us is the importance of recording customer service calls with Comcast*.

And that appears to apply even for customers of Comcast that aren't trying to flee their brand of customer service. Tim Davis uploaded a (NSFW due to language) recording to YouTube of a couple of conversations he had with Comcast's customer service.

If you can't listen to the audio, or want a quick breakdown: Tim had moved recently and chose to relocate his Comcast service because, according to the video, he didn't have a choice due to a lack of competitive providers. I've gone through this myself several times in Chicago; it sucks. In any case, he did the internet portion of the install himself, as I too have done several times. All went well until a few weeks later when he was experiencing intermittent outages. An initial call with Comcast confirmed the problem was with the wiring outside the home, not the internal setup. Tim recorded that conversation, including when a Comcast rep confirmed that there is no charge to have a technician do work on outside lines to provide adequate service. Makes sense. A tech comes out, fixes the outside line issue, tests the network inside the home to assure connectivity is restored, and leaves. Then this happens.

All is fine until a week or two later when Davis receives a bill that includes $99.99 for "Failed Self Install," another $32 for "Failed Video [Self Install Kit]," and $49.95 for "Wireless Network SET Up." That's $181.94 in total. But, insists Davis, the problem wasn't that he failed to do the self-install correctly or that there was a failed self-install kit, since the problem involved cables entering his property that he never touched. Similarly, the tech never set up or did anything with Davis's WiFi system, so the set-up charge is bogus.

When Tim calls up to dispute the charges, he's told several things. First, the rep applies a "discount" that wipes out about fifty dollars. Then she insists she cannot apply any credits because all of the tech's service charges are valid, despite Tim informing her of both the recording of the call with the other rep that said there would be no charge and the fact that the tech would have had to have the apartment landlord's approval to access what the tech claimed he'd worked on. Instead of applying a credit, she suggests she upgrade his internet for a year for free instead, which would be of a $60 or so value. $121 or $60 in temporary service upgrades...guess which Tim wanted? He insisted the bogus charges to be credited back to him. The rep then claims she'd get back to him. When she did, she confirmed that everyone on the planet should be recording their calls to Comcast's customer service.

She eventually calls back later than planned, and after escalating his call one final time she tells him that the full $82 will actually be credited back to his account. When Davis asks why she couldn't simply do that during the earlier call, her explanation is enough to make you pound your head through a wall in frustration.

"We try to negotiate, and again, that is a valid charge," she answers. "But since I advised my manager that there is a recording and you were misinformed, then she's the one who can approve that $82."

Seemingly flabbergasted, Davis asks to confirm, "You're telling me that if I didn't have a recording of that call, you wouldn't have been able to do it?"

"Yes, that is correct," answers the rep, confirming that the only way to get Comcast to erase a bogus charge from your account is to have recorded evidence that you were promised in advance that the call would be free.

Everyone got that? Customer service reps dealing with disputed charges will try to "negotiate" with you and you only have a chance at legitimate recourse if you record all your calls with them. Keep digging, Comcast. I don't think the grave is big enough yet.

* Oh, but if you're recording your call, you may want to pay attention to the local laws about such things.

Filed Under: customer service, recording phone calls
Companies: comcast

Behind The Veil Part 2: Let's All Look At Comcast's Customer Retention Playbook For Its Employees!

from the always-be-closing dept

Following one Comcast customer-retention rep's brave attempt to set the record for the most annoying cancellation call, The Verge put out a call for past and current Comcast employees to weigh in on just how rare or frowned-upon this sort of thing is. As the initial submissions noted, this sort of thing isn't so much frowned-upon as it is, oh, let's call it super-actively encouraged. So much so, in fact, that the latest confession dump on The Verge includes Comcast's employee handbook for customer retention reps, and it's exactly as infuriating as you think it is.

A current employee at Comcast who participated in the Comcast Confessions series provided The Verge with a copy of the 20-page guidelines the company uses for evaluating retention specialists. The guidelines are divided into 13 sections:

1. Greet customer clearly
2. Clarify reason for call
3. Relate and empathize
4. Take control
5. Set the agenda
6. Ask targeted questions
7. Consider unstated needs / active listening
8. Take ownership / make offer
9. Overcome objections
10. Close the save
11. Confirm details
12. End on a positive note
13. Documentation

It has all the hallmarks of a playbook designed to piss off and annoy someone who wants to cancel service. Legislated courtesy followed by manufactured empathy that devolves into the assertion of the rep's dominance on the call, all leading to a close of the "save." If you're not in some kind of sales role, this list probably doesn't look familiar to you. I've been in sales all of my life, however, and this is the kind of playbook you get in a sales role at a faceless mega-corporation. Trust me, it's as frustrating for the sales person as it is for the customer. But you know what this isn't? Customer service for someone looking to cancel their damned account.

But the handbook does offer indirect advice on how to get past these Comcast retention people in the form of what "objections" cannot be resolved with some contrived buddy-talk and a "special" offer.

Save Attempt is Not Applicable in the Following Scenarios

-Customer is moving in with an existing Comcast customer (CAE must verify Comcast services active at new address)
-Customer is moving to a non-Comcast area (CAE must verify by looking up zip code)
-Account holder is deceased / incapacitated
-Temporary / seasonal disconnect and Seasonal Suspend Plan is not available in their area
-Natural disaster
-Customer doesn't know what address they're moving to

So, if you're a Comcast customer looking to cancel your service, your playbook is quite clear. Once you are transferred to customer retention, you say the following: "I am cancelling my service because my home was hit by a tornado, flinging me out of the window and into an unknown address that I'll be sharing with someone who already has Comcast service. Also I'm dead."

Happy cancelling, folks!

Filed Under: broadband, cancellation, customer service, retention, sales
Companies: comcast