Gaming Platform War Update: Epic Games Store Suspends Accounts... For Buying Too Many Games

from the you-had-one-job dept

As we've talked about before, it seems an era of gaming platform wars is upon us. While Valve's Steam platform mostly only had to contend with less-used storefronts like GOG and Origin, a recent front was opened up by the Epic Games Store, which has promised better cuts to publishers to get exclusive games and has attempted to wage a PR battle to make people mad at Steam. It's all quite involved, with opinions varying across the internet as to who the good and bad guys in this story are.

Less complicated is the point of having an Epic Games Store at all. The idea would be -- wait for it -- to sell games. This is something that might not be fully understood by Epic itself, it seems, given that the platform has been busily suspending accounts for the crime of buying too many games.

There’s a big sale on right now at the Epic Games Store, a time when many users—conditioned by Steam’s frequently generous discounts on a huge range of titles—go nuts and buy a ton of stuff real quickly. On Valve’s store that’s enough to get you a pile of shame, but on Epic’s it’ll just get your account blocked from making further purchases.

Those Epic customers going through this right now are not taking it, ah, well.

Enough users were affected by this that Epic's PR team is aware of it. Apparently the culprit is an overly aggressive fraud-detection system, with Epic's store deciding that nobody would buy that many games that quickly unless they were doing it with stolen payment credentials. Frankly, given that the store is running Steam-style sales, it really should have known better. Steam is famous for these types of sales and its customers are known to gobble up tons of titles when they happen. Five games is, frankly, child's play.

And Epic's response isn't great.

Nick Chester from Epic PR confirmed with Game Revolution that “This was a result of our aggressive fraud rules,” and that “If players run into this issue, they should contact player support so we can investigate.”

Well, yeah, or you could just fix your game store. After all, Steam's works.

Filed Under: platforms, sales, steam, video games
Companies: epic, valve

EU Buried Its Own $400,000 Study Showing Unauthorized Downloads Have Almost No Effect On Sales

from the but-the-truth-is-finally-out-now dept

One of the problems in the debate about the impact of unauthorized downloads on the copyright industry is the paucity of large-scale, rigorous data. That makes it easy for the industry to demand government policies that are not supported by any evidence they are needed or will work. In 2014, the European Commission tried to address that situation by putting out a tender for the following research:

to devise a viable methodology and to subsequently implement it in view of measuring the extent to which unauthorised online consumption of copyrighted materials (music, audiovisual, books and video games) displaces sales of online and offline legal content, gathering comparable systematic data on perceptions, and actual and potential behaviour of consumers in the EU.

The contract was awarded to Ecorys, a "research and consultancy company" based in the Netherlands that has written many similar reports in the past. The value of the contract was a princely €369,871 -- over $400,000. Given that hefty figure, and the fact that this was public money, you might expect the European Commission to have published the results as soon as it received them, which was in May 2015. And yet strangely, it kept them to itself. In order to find out what happened to it, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request was submitted by the Pirate Party MEP, Julia Reda. It's worth reading the to and fro of emails between Reda and the European Commission to get an idea of how unhelpful the latter were on this request. The European Commission has now released the report, with the risible claim that this move has nothing to do with Reda's FOI request, and that it was about to publish it anyway.

The 304-page document (pdf), made available on the netzpolitik.org site, contains all the details of the questions that were put to a total of 30,000 people from Germany, France, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK, their answers, and exhaustive analysis. The summary reveals the key results:

In 2014, on average 51 per cent of the adults and 72 per cent of the minors in the EU have illegally downloaded or streamed any form of creative content, with higher piracy rates in Poland and Spain than in the other four countries of this study. In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements. That does not necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect. An exception is the displacement of recent top films. The results show a displacement rate of 40 per cent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films are consumed legally.

That is, there is zero evidence that unauthorized downloads harmed sales of music, books and games. Indeed, for games, there was evidence that such downloads boosted sales:

the estimated effect of illegal online transactions on sales is positive -- implying that illegal consumption leads to increased legal consumption. This positive effect of illegal downloads and streams on the sales of games may be explained by the industry being successful in converting illegal users to paying users. Tactics used by the industry include, for example, offering gameplay with extra bonuses or extra levels if consumers pay.

The research did find evidence that there was some displacement of sales in the film sector. Another result of the Ecorys work provided an explanation of why that might be:

Overall, the analysis indicates that for films and TV-series current prices are higher than 80 per cent of the illegal downloaders and streamers are willing to pay. For books, music and games prices are at a level broadly corresponding to the willingness to pay of illegal downloaders and streamers. This suggests that a decrease in the price level would not change piracy rates for books, music and games but that prices can have an effect on displacement rates for films and TV-series.

In other words, people turn to unauthorized downloads for films and TV because they feel the street prices are too high. For books, music and games, by contrast, the prices were felt to be fair, and therefore people were happy to pay them. This is exactly what Techdirt has been saying for years -- that the best way to stop unauthorized downloads is to adopt reasonable pricing. A new post on the EDRi site points out something rather noteworthy about the research results concerning video and TV series:

Interestingly, these results concerning the film industry found their way to a publication of an academic paper by Benedikt Hertz and Kamil Kiljański, both members of the chief economist team of the European Commission. Yet the other unpublished results, showing no negative impact of piracy in the music, book and games industry, were not mentioned in the paper. Beyond that, the original study itself is not referred to either.

This seems to substantiate suspicion that the European Commission was hiding the study on purpose and cherry-picked the results they wanted to publish, by choosing only the results which supported their political agenda towards stricter copyright rules.

The European Commission was quite happy to publish partial results that fitted with its agenda, but tried to bury most of its research that showed industry calls for legislation to "tackle" unauthorized downloads were superfluous because there was no evidence of harm. This is typical of the biased and one-sided approach taken by the European Commission in its copyright policy, shown most clearly in its dogged support for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement -- and of the tilted playing field that those striving for fair copyright laws must still contend with on a regular basis. Sadly, it's too much to hope that the European Commission's own evidence, gathered at considerable cost to EU taxpayers, will now lead it to take a more rational approach to copyright enforcement, and cause it to drop the harmful and demonstrably unnecessary upload filter it is currently pushing for.

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Filed Under: copyright, eu, eu commission, piracy, sales, studies, suppression, transparency

Author Sues Publisher For Portraying eBook Licenses As 'Sales' To Pay Out Fewer Royalties

from the whatever's-the-most-profitable-terminology... dept

If you're a consumer, that piece of digital wordsmithery you purchased probably isn't worth the paper it isn't printed on. Like most digital media available for "purchase," ebooks are often "sold" as licenses that allow the publisher to control use of the product indefinitely, whether through DRM or by simply attaching EULAs no one will ever read to every download.

This works out great for publishers, who can make irrational, unilateral decisions to pull their catalogs from platforms as a "bargaining tool," leaving purchasers without access to their purchased goods. But publishers (including music publishers like UMG) only use the term "license" when it's most advantageous for them. When it comes to paying authors, the terminology suddenly changes. Now it's a "sale," with all the disadvantages for authors that entails.

"Sales" is a historical term, meant to reference physical sales and the additional costs (printing, packaging, shipping) built into the process. Licenses -- and the ebooks attached to them -- have none of these costs, hence the higher payout rate. But, according to a recently-filed lawsuit, Simon and Schuster is treating ebooks like physical sales in order to pay authors lower royalties.

Lloyd Jassin of CopyLaw points out why this is worth litigating:

The distinction is significant, because the royalty rate for sales is much lower than the rate for the license of rights. If categorized as a license the author receives 50% of net receipts, rather than 25% of net typically paid to authors for the "sale" of an eBook.

Jassin also points out that after Eminem's win over UMG on the sale/license issue (dealing with digital album/track sales), most publishers rewrote their contracts to make the screwing explicit.

In the wake of the Eminem decision, most publishers amended their contracts, so the sale or license of an "eBook" is unambiguously treated as a sale. The lawsuit, therefore, challenges the publisher's interpretation of their legacy or backlist contracts.   

How much of this will hold up depends a lot on when contracts were rewritten. From the consumer end, "sold" ebooks certainly looked like licenses, at least up until S&S rewrote its terms of use. Up until January 2013, the terms of use contained this paragraph:

Subject to your strict compliance with these TOU, S&S grants you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, revocable, non-assignable and non-transferable license to view, use and/or play a single copy of the Materials and download one copy of the Materials on any single computer for your personal, non-commercial home use only, provided that you retain all trademark, copyright and other proprietary notices contained in the Materials. Modification of the Materials or use of the Materials for any other purpose is a violation of S&S's or its licensor's copyright, trademark and other proprietary rights. The use of any such Materials on any other web site or networked computer environment without S&S's express written consent is prohibited.

This paragraph disappeared shortly after that, suggesting some rewriting of policies occurred as a result of UMG's settlement with Eminem in late 2012. Due to the statute of limitations, the plaintiff will only be able to challenge the publisher's last six years of royalty payments, but as recently as three years ago, Simon & Schuster was "licensing" books to customers while telling authors every ebook was being "sold."

Then there's this issue, which may result in this particular author finding he has nothing to sue about (although other authors contracted by S&S might):

According to a report in Law360, an unnamed spokesman for Simon & Schuster told Law360 that the division that published Dr. Blau's book, was sold (or was it licensed?) to another company in 1998, and that the publisher never published a digital edition of the book.

So, even if Blau's general complaint is legitimate in terms of how S&S is using sales v. licenses to decrease its royalty payouts, his specific complaint may be completely baseless.

Filed Under: author, digital content, ebooks, license, licenses, sales, sheldon blau
Companies: simon and schuster

DRM Is Evil, Part 8,492: Nook Pulls Out Of UK, Exploring Options To Let People Retain Access To At Least Some Books

from the drm-sucks dept

Yet another story of how badly DRM screws over legitimate buyers, with no actual benefit for copyright holders. This time, it's about the total failure of Barnes & Noble's Nook ebook reader, which is struggling globally, and shutting down entirely in the UK. Nate Hoffelder has a great article explaining why the Nook has been such an abject failure, but a key point highlighted by the Register is that the company is still working to see if there are ways that legitimate buyers can keep access to at least some of the books they purchased.

In one of the most amazing statements this author has read, the company says it's trying to set up a deal with Sainsbury's Entertainment on Demand "to ensure that you have continued access to the vast majority of your purchased NOOK Books at no new cost to you" (emphasis added).

Of course, this is hardly a new phenomenon. Remember when Microsoft had a DRM it called "PlaysForSure"? And remember when it shut down those servers, blocking people from ever moving that content to new machines? Or how about when Scholastic shut down its Storia DRM'd book offering, meaning parents who purchased ebooks for their kids had digital pixie dust instead. Or when Rhapsody/RealNetworks killed off an old DRM, killing off access to songs people had legitimately paid to access. Or when digital comics company JManga shut down and with it took down access to purchased content. And remember when Adobe changed its DRM and made old ebooks obsolete?

This kind of thing happens again and again and again. And for what? What benefit does it actually create for copyright holders? At best it only serves to entrench the most dominant retailers, taking power away from the copyright holders (who already took power away from the actual creators). And it tends to do nothing to stop actual copyright infringement, because all of those works are still readily and easily available.

Filed Under: drm, ebooks, lost books, nook, ownership, sales
Companies: barnes and noble, nook

Retro Games Industry Booming Despite Pirate-Options Being Super Available

from the breaking-the-myth dept

We've all heard it before: [industry X] can't compete in the marketplace because the public just wants everything for free. It's a mantra taken up by the film industry, the recording industry, the literary industry, and the video game industry. And, almost always, we've found that the mantra is complete nonsense. Instead, it's been clear that the public is more than willing to purchase that which is scarce and valued. It's just that those scarce and valued things are often times not the content itself.

The retro-gaming industry is instructive in this for two reasons. Piracy is typically much easier for retro games than modern titles. Most of the older consoles have been fully emulated at this point, with ROMs and games readily available for them online. For older PC titles, retro games often have no DRM or have been cracked so long ago that the cracked files are also readily available. In addition, retro titles aren't policed the same way that modern releases are. And, yet, despite all of that, or perhaps because of it, the retro-gaming industry is exploding.

Sites like GOG.com and Steam's client offer old games with smaller pricetags. The major console-makers like Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all have their own marketplaces for digital downloads of retro games. Those marketplaces must be doing quite well, considering that the consoles and publishers continue to support them and expand the retro-game catalogs. And, for the actual old products, the interest and prices for retro-game pieces are skyrocketing.

Giulio Graziani says it makes him feel a bit like a drug dealer, even though he's not buying anything illegal. It's part of his job digging up a steady supply of video games from the 1980s and 1990s for his store, VideoGamesNewYork, which specializes in everything from Atari and Gameboy to rare prototype NES cartridges.

Graziani, 50, has been in business since 2003, but says the market only recently began to spike. "Five years ago, I could drive through Texas and stop in little towns and buy everything," he says. "Now they're selling games out there for more than I do!" Even simple pieces, like The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, which cost $12 in 2010, now go for $25. More coveted games, like Nintendo's Earthbound, can fetch hundreds of dollars, even thousands if they're in the original box.

It's always been this way. Collectors of art will always pay for original pieces, or for the items that go along with the actual content. If the public simply wanted everything for free when it came to gaming, anyone could go on the internet and get an emulator and a copy of The Legend of Zelda and have at it. But, of course, there are scarce items that go along with the collectables that can't be downloaded, and so the prices are paid, even as they rise. And it's not peanuts we're talking about here. Estimates for how big the retro-gaming market is come in at something like $200 million per year.

For those who aren't collectors, however, there's still a reason to buy.

Luckily, for a casual retro gamer, there are some cheap solutions to get a quick dose of nostalgia. Nintendo's Virtual Console allows you to download classic titles to play on the Wii U or Nintendo 3DS. The Retron 5 console by Hyperkin sells for $159.99 and supports games for 10 systems, including NES, SNES, Famicom, SENES, Genesis and Game Boy.

Add to that GOG and Steam, along with the old-game marketplace Sony and Microsoft offer, and the RtB here should be clear: ease of purchase and the platform. Much like it is understood that iTunes is attractive because of the platform, rather than the music catalog that is also available via piracy, so do gamers appreciate the convenience offered by these marketplaces. Which is why they're growing and selling more and more.

If anything should signal the end of the "everyone wants everything for free" myth, let it be retro-gaming.

Filed Under: compete with free, free, markets, retro games, sales, video games

Seattle Honda/Toyota Dealer Decides To Try To Sell Cars Like Tesla Does, Rather Than Trying To Shut Tesla Down

from the that's-one-step dept

Over the past few years, we've highlighted how frightened autodealers have absolutely freaked out about the way in which Tesla sells its cars. If you don't know, rather than having a bunch of independent dealers, Tesla sells direct, where you mainly buy via its website. Rather than dealerships, Tesla has showrooms where you can go check out the cars. The pricing is clear and obvious and it's much lower pressure. Dealers have tried a variety of tricks to actually outlaw Teslas from being sold in their states, even arguing that Tesla's website is illegal. Thankfully, most states aren't falling for this, and even the FTC has supported the Tesla way of selling cars.

Apparently, some dealers are finally realizing that if you can't beat 'em by trying to make them disappear, perhaps you ought to compete. Via Jalopnik, we learn of a dealer in Seattle (who owns both a Honda and a Toyota dealership) who has decided to adopt what he thinks is the "Tesla model" for selling cars -- single price, no haggling, no separate finance department whose there to screw you over on the deal terms, and transparency about the loan rates.

What's more, the dealerships have no F&I managers. Salespeople handle the loans. Learning to do that isn't easy, so Miller and Mohammadi have hired contractors to do some paperwork and walk the salespeople through the process.

Prices are fixed, and so are interest rates. Customers who need financing can refer to a chart on the wall, tracing their finger from their credit score to the amount of the loan.

Of course, the story also notes that this shift hasn't been easy. Most of the existing sales staff left as they couldn't deal with this setup, and sales at the dealership dropped significantly -- though they've since rebounded. And, of course, there have been other dealers in the past that have adopted "one price/no haggling" setups, but studies have shown that many customers don't trust such deals, assuming that the "one price" is likely to be higher than they could get by negotiating, even if they don't like haggling.

While I think it's a smart move to try to compete, rather than ban, innovative competitors like Tesla, it feels a little bit like a cargo cult copying situation, where the focus is on copying the obvious superficial aspects of what Tesla is doing, but not the deeper hidden reasons. In Tesla's case, it's a combination of factors that are selling those cars, including the cool factor, the environmental factor and the overall prestige of the car. Hondas and Toyotas, while recognized as reliable, don't have all of those factors. Plus, since the Tesla sales model is for all Teslas, there is no other option, so no one feels that the single price offering is a rip off. That's not the case when a single dealer does something.

So I think it's good that this dealer is looking for a better model, but it's going to involve a lot of experiments and innovating, beyond just copying some of the superficial aspects of what Tesla does.

Filed Under: auto dealers, car dealers, cargo cult, competition, dealers, haggling, innovation, sales, superficial
Companies: honda, tesla, toyota

Film Academy Sues Family Of Oscar Winner For Selling Trophy On Ebay

from the death-is-no-escape! dept

The Motion Picture Academy is notorious for being quite litigious, particularly when it comes to anything to do with the Oscars. Hell, even websites essentially promoting the Oscars get sued by the Academy, because why the hell not? And don't you dare try to sell your tickets to the Oscars on the secondary market. But even with all of that, I wouldn't have expected to see the Academy assert that they own the award hardware they hand out to Oscar winners, including after the death of those winners. Confused? Check this out.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has lined up a new lawsuit, painting the picture of a cinematographer's heir who ignored bylaws by selling a statuette on eBay. The statuette was awarded in 1953 to Robert Surtees for excellence in black-and-white cinematography for the film, The Bad and the Beautiful, which starred Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner. More than 60 years later, the Film Academy is in court after Carol Surtees allegedly auctioned the statuette for $40,500. The Academy makes its members agree that it has a "right of first refusal" if the statuettes are ever sold. To prevent a black market for the famous trophies, the Academy believes itself entitled to purchase the statuettes for $10 in the event they are ever sold.

Carol was the wife of Bruce Surtees, who in turn was the son of Oscar winner Robert Surtees. In other words, the Oscar statuette from 1953 had been passed down to Carol after her husband and father-in-law had both passed away. She's the widow of the winner's son. The point of me driving this home is that, even if we pretend that it makes sense for the Academy to be able to claim that an item worth thousands of dollars must first be offered to them for the price of 2/3 of a ticket to one of their movies, that agreement would have been with the award winner, not his or her heirs. In this case, the statuette had been passed on twice thanks to the grim reaper doing his thing. In what world does it makes sense for Carol Surtees to have to follow bylaws to which she never agreed?

Not that this lack of logic is keeping the Academy from suing for every last dollar she got for the statuette. You can read the full lawsuit [pdf and embedded below].

The Academy alleges that it sent a letter to Surtees on December 5, spoke on the phone with her on December 12, and despite reminders about the right of first refusal, the auction happened on or about that latter day. She's now being sued for breach of contract. The lawsuit also names John Does, who are being sued for alleged tortious interference. The Academy demands at least $40,500 in compensatory damages, punitive damages, and an order that the Oscar be put in a constructive trust, among other demanded relief.

I just can't seem to grasp how someone can be in breach of a contract to which they were not party. The Academy can assert they have these rights all they want, but I can't seem to find any reference to why those rights should exist with respect to Carol Surtees.

Filed Under: bruce surtees, carol surtees, contracts, first sale, lawsuits, oscars, ownership, resales, robert surtees, sales
Companies: motion picture academy

Flickr Plans To Sell Creative Commons Photos And That's Okay...

from the permissionless-culture-is-okay dept

There appear to be a lot of people up in arms over Flickr's announced plans to sell wall art prints of various Creative Commons-licensed images on the site. The uproar is mostly because people who chose a license like Creative Commons' attribution license, and not a "non-commercial" license are not going to see any money from any images that Flickr (owned by Yahoo) sells. And that leads to angry posts like this one arguing that selling the work is "cheesy, desperate and not at all fine with me."

Except... the license that was chosen says that, yes, this is fine with you. This doesn't necessarily mean that Flickr/Yahoo's decision was smart. The way it's being done appears to be upsetting lots of people, and upsetting the core people who make your service work is -- generally speaking -- not smart. But this leads to a bigger issue, one that is highlighted nicely in a post on all of this by Tom Lee, in which he notes that part of open licensing is giving up control so that others can benefit. And this is a key point that is missed by many, unfortunately:

Open licensing is about giving up control so that other people can benefit. That’s all it will cost you: control. Having control feels nice. But you should ask yourself what it really gets you. And you should think about what others might gain if you were able to let go.

Furthermore, he notes that what Flickr is doing here really will benefit lots of folks:

Flickr’s sale of prints does not deprive photographers of their work or money. Users have the same ability to use their work that they always had. The vast majority would never have taken the steps necessary to profit from their work, so print sales do not deprive them of money. When a user really expects to sell prints, they should avoid Creative Commons licensing, which, as I’ve mentioned, is easily done.

Flickr’s sale of prints provides benefits to other people. People who work for and own Flickr make money. The vendors producing and delivering the prints make money. And people who buy prints get to enjoy works of art.

Parker Higgins posted some further thoughts on Twitter that are worth noting as well. Many of the people who are upset about this are angry that Yahoo didn't ask them about this first. But as Higgins notes, that's just bringing back the idea of permission-based culture, rather than recognizing that a big part of the value of Creative Commons (or any other such open license system or public domain) is getting beyond permission culture and recognizing that in giving up control, there are lots of benefits.

Free culture licenses aren't supposed to flag that you're a cooperative player in permissions culture. They're supposed to do the opposite.

— Parker Higgins (@xor) December 1, 2014

Now, one could make a reasonable cultural argument that Yahoo/Flickr should have approached this situation with more caution -- recognizing how some people would likely respond to this, no matter how reasonable or legal it is. If I were in charge of the program at Yahoo, that likely would have been my approach. But, the troubling end result of this is that it may just lead more people to slap a "non-commercial" license on their Creative Commons works, greatly limiting the kinds of benefits that are out there, without providing any real benefit to themselves. In some ways, this gets to the heart of the problems we've noted with Creative Commons in the past -- especially the fact that many incorrectly assume that all CC-licensed material is only for non-commercial use. It's also why we think there's a strong argument that Creative Commons should either drop or totally rebrand the non-commercial offering, so that this branding confusion is dealt with. The anger in this situation is just a rehash of that branding confusion -- and the end result is that it reinforces this idea of "permissions" culture, rather than highlighting the benefits of sharing culture without first needing permission -- even if for commercial reasons.

Filed Under: attribution, copyright, creative commons, flickr, non-commercial, photos, sales
Companies: flickr, yahoo

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

Behind The Veil: Comcast Techs Detail How Customer Service Is Really All Just 'Sales'

from the confession-time dept

By now you've surely heard the story of Ryan Block's recorded attempt to cancel his Comcast service, which resulted in one of the most infuriating 3rd person experiences I've ever witnessed. On top of that, we wondered recently whether some of the claims made in the call, chiefly revolving around Comcast's status as the speediest internet provider out there, might land the company in legal trouble. Both stories essentially stem from a supposed customer service rep behaving more like a used car salesman than anything remotely resembling an agent that might assist with the cancellation of service. The problem with these kinds of stories is that they're usually written off as one-time occurrences, with the company in question insisting this isn't how it typically does business. Comcast did just that, suggesting they might need to re-train some employees at some call centers to get them back on the company line.

Fortunately for us, there are enterprising journalists like the folks at The Verge, who put out a call for current and former Comcast employees to tell the story behind the veil. The result is pretty much what you'd expect: Block's call wasn't a deviation from company policy, it was just the application of company policy on steroids. There are several examples here, with a promise of more to come, but they pretty much tell the same story.

Mark Pavlic was hired as a customer account executive at Comcast in October 2010 after graduating from a technical institute. He figured he’d be troubleshooting TV, phone, and internet service, but most of his month-long training focused on sales. Every day when he walked into the call center, he’d see a whiteboard with employee names and their RGUs, or revenue generating units. Pavlic’s call center in Pittsburgh is operated by Comcast, but the company also uses third-party and international call centers. Exact training and incentive structures vary by call center, and on whether employees are working on business services or residential services. Our interviews revealed a common thread across facilities: what often started out as a carrot — bonuses for frontline employees who made sales — turned into a stick, as employees who failed to pitch hard enough or meet their quotas were chastised, or worse.

Worse meaning getting fired, basically. Such was the case with Brian Van Horn, who had been hired by Comcast to be a billing specialist and had been employed for 10 years. He detailed how the culture and policies he was tasked with changed over the years, getting more aggressive and less cooperative with cancellations. Eventually, he had scripts designed to overcome objections, repeatedly, rather than comply with the customer's requests. Despite his being good at the aspects of the job he'd actually been hired for, things didn't go well.

Van Horn says he "couldn’t sell water to a man dying of thirst in the desert," but his other metrics were good: he had high scores on "first call resolution," meaning that customers’ issues were often fixed in a single call, as well as "attaboys," where a customer asked to speak to a supervisor in order to compliment him for a job well done. But after repeated reprimands for low sales, Van Horn was fired.

These stories aren't just coming from former employees who were fired or quit, by the way. Current employees, including at least one from the same call center than handled the infamous Block call, weighed in as well.

[The rep who spoke to Block] was placed on leave, pending investigation. His desk is still set up, which means he still works for us. Yes, he is a good salesperson. I mean if you don’t have stellar numbers, you get fired. One of the issues with [the recorded call] is he actually did his job, just went WAY overboard with it. According to our retention handbook, he did not violate any of the things that can end your employment.

-Retention supervisor, 2012-present, Colorado

So much for all of this being some overly zealous employee going rogue. The question that arises with this kind of thing, particularly with Comcast operating a multi-tiered group of call centers, some outsourced, some not, is whether the company has become too unwieldy to actually meet customer requests. It's fine for a company to work to retain customers, but that's typically done by providing great service, not irritating the shit out of anyone who doesn't think your company's poop doesn't stink. Far from too big to fail, Comcast, recently in massive merger discussions, may be getting too big to succeed.

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