Comcast May Care, But They Suck at It
Friends and regular readers know well of my ongoing love hate affair with Comcast. You know, the company with the @comcastcares Twitter handle? It comes as no shock to any of you that my gripe is chiefly with the company’s customer service — or lack thereof — and less so with the company’s actual product offerings.
The latest chapter in this epic is as entertaining as it is sad. It all starts with an impersonal form letter I received in the mail:
Fair enough. Every company (especially those as large as Comcast) sends form letters. It’s what happened after that where the story gets interesting. (N.B.: Please understand that I am a “Valued Customer,” as the letter opens…)
Noting that this is “IMPORTANT INFORMATION,” as indicated by the bright orange call-out box with ALL CAPS, and as reiterated that there is “ACTION REQUIRED,” I take to the streets to do my part as the good customer.
I first go to the Web address they provide, and follow some simple prompts. Predictably, after filling out some basic information, I receive an error prompt reading, “This action can not be completed. Please call 1-877-634-4434 for further assistance.”
Fail #1: Fulfillment. I can’t take the easy step of completing the process online, as they suggest, but instead have to call a 1-800 number. We all know how satisfying that can be.
I call the number, like a lamb being lead to slaughter, only to be greeted by my deepest darkest fear: the automated receptionist. You know the drill:
- Please enter your account number or telephone number listed on the account.
- Para continuar en Espanol, oprima numero dos.
- Please enter or say your account number [again].
- I’m sorry, we cannot access your account. Please re-enter or say your account number.
- Please provide your date of birth and the last four digits of your social security number.
- Please say or enter your mother’s maiden name.
- Please list or enter all state capitals in alphabetical order.
- Please say or enter the Pledge of Allegiance in igpay atinlay.
- Please state why you are such a fool for placing this call in the first place.
Eventually, I find my way through this labyrinth to its final destination: a place to order new equipment. How do I know that I NEED new equipment, you ask? I don’t. I only know that I didn’t “oprima numero dos” a few minutes ago, and for that, I’m extremely sorry.
I hang up in frustration.
Fail #2: Fulfillment (again). I didn’t ask to be a party to this. They sent me an urgent letter! And they have no customer-centric mechanism in place to respond to the action they’ve ordered me to follow!
As is my wont, I take my gripe to the people. Strength in numbers, and all of that. I post the following on Twitter:
I know I’m a baby, but it’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to!
Almost as predictable as the first two failures, out of nowhere comes a Comcast, er… “care specialist” …like wind to the Armada. It begins amicably enough. She asks how she can help, which is so sweet of her…
It’s just that: I’ve seen this movie before. And I know how it ends. I wind up back at the 800 number only to throw my phone through the wall, injuring an innocent passerby outside my office. No thanks.
I’m not an expert in social media, perhaps, but I know what makes the customer happy. A public conversation about a private matter is not one of them. So I decide to direct-message this nice young lady (how do I know she is young? just wait!) to take it offline. No can do. She’s not following me.
Fail #3: Not understanding Twitter, the very medium she’s using to solve the issues of the day. What she SHOULD be doing is taking me to a private channel to resolve the issue. This starts by following me, then sending me a nicely worded tweet offering to continue the conversation via DM. From there, perhaps we exchange e-mail addresses, and get beyond the 140-character constraints. Maybe we even offer to call each other. Who knows? I just know that I do not need to flood my followers’ Twitter streams with this nonsense. And neither does she.
I even try to help her out…doing her job for her…and suggest that very thing!
What do I get as a response? Condescension and total lack of understanding:
I thought my response, while admittedly snarky, was enough to illustrate my point and put the matter to rest:
But no. We move on to the fourth fail.
Fail #4: Insult your customer.
HELP! I’M AN OLD MAN, AND THESE INTERNETS FRIGHTEN ME!!! SEND FOR MY FAINTING COUCH!!!
Making a presumptive and derogatory comment about the character of the customer is not a way to endear yourself to that customer. But you would think this would be plainly obvious to a member of the “Comcast Cares” team. But I digress…
Naturally, I take offense. Do you blame me?
And now I’m REALLY doing Bonnie’s job for her!
Finally, she followed me back. And sent me a DM on Twitter. And did enough checking on me to find my phone number. To her credit, she called me and faced the music. I admit, I wasn’t polite. But I calmly explained the many and varied failures chronicled above, plus the fifth, most important among them:
Fail #5: Waste your client’s time with unnecessary and poorly conceived marketing promotions. In the end, they were just trying to sell me another digital converter. I have three. Do you think they might know that, or have a record of it when we went through this rigmarole a year ago?! I suppose I could add Fail #6: Not knowing your own customer.
But here’s the thing. It’s not just that Comcast doesn’t know their customers—they don’t understand the very premise of customers to begin with. And this is why we all root and pine for the day when a competitor can successfully come in and build the better mousetrap. As soon as we are freed from the shackles of this de facto monopoly, we will be well on our way, dear Comcast. And will you blame us?
Probably. You often do.
___________________________________________________________________________________
NOTE: I, through all of this, do not blame Bonnie for a minute. The blame belongs squarely on the shoulders of the company that trained her…the company that has fostered this customer-last culture for decades. Bonnie is but a cog in the wheel.
Tom,
I’m very sorry you feel that the company was trying to bilk you out of funds. As explained, we have no way of telling how many tv’s you have in your house, so we have to send notice to all customers.
Concerning twitter: your followers will not see our conversation unless they are following both you and I. I do not follow until asked due to twitter’s follow count limits. The generation gap comment was neither derogatory nor meant to insult (please see tweet below). I was simply implying that our current form of conversation is considered a real channel of dialogue to myself and most of my customers. I’m sorry you don’t feel the same, and apologize if you thought I was insulting you.
I regret that you hung up on me while I was trying to find a way to make this right for you. If you need assistance in the future, please do not hesitate to contact me. My email address is bonnie_smalley@comcast.com but twitter is the most expeditious form of communication for me. I didn’t get to find out what type of musician you are, and I’d love to know!
(@tnixon16 following, but def. not calling you old
you look pretty young, but not gen y/millenial/whatever they call us… a doodlebobber)
I’ll leave it to the rest of you decide if the above is a worthy form of outreach or redress. You can probably already guess my answer.
1.) did i ever mention being “bilked out of funds”?
2.) be sure to point out that I hung up on her…see the last line of my original post
3.) obsequious make-good attempt (re: my musicianship): Fail #7.
Perhaps some day I can be hip enough to hang with the doodlebobbers.
Hi Tom,
Like you, I am often frustrated by my Comcast experience, and like you, I have taken my complaints to Twitter out of frustration with the phone trees that start all nice and friendly and end with “para continuar in Ingles, oprima la asterisko or perish in a burning burning fire of unquenchfulness,” but I had a totally opposite experience with Bonnie.
She was able to quickly resolve a client’s account problem for us, and got them turned back on when they’d been mistakenly disconnected. Bonnie was instrumental in helping when our local office was completely full of fail and the phone support bozos were so busy being unable to find our account that they could not help. Bonnie was the only person able to fix our issue.
So, I get where you’re coming from with regard to frustration, but you appear to have taken it out on someone who could actually fix your problem, and who’s generally good at her job.
Way to go.
Tom Bridge
This is the exact thing I complain about EVERYDAY! Its also the reason we need to get the ISP market opened back up. I played this same song and dance with AT&T for DSL.
Mine started with a mass email with pricing that would have doubled my speed for the same price I was paying. I was a “Valued Customer” and didn’t consider this to be a first time customer promotion.
After 2 days of phone battles, online support fails, email bombings I finally had enough and was trying to cancel my account, all from a email full of fail and no customer service. This was literally 4 days of my time wasted!
I played more phone tag just to cancel my account, when the last person I called (I was at my very wits end) was amazing. I was not happy and didn’t hold anything back, not language, nor thoughts, nothing! She took it and got EVERYTHING I wanted done!
After I told her she single handily saved my account she confessed she had been a “higher up” and due to a re organization was demoted. She had inside and out knowledge of what she needed to do to solve my issues; and was surprised at the ordeal I went through. Why cant these companies see the disconnect right in front of them? Maybe its because they dont need to do anything about it, where else are you going to go? Its not any better with any other carrier.
Moral of the story, know your customer and dont send junk mail that makes them call you!
I cant complain a whole lot. I make a good chunk of change due to the fail of these companies (I think its the way they want it). My bread and butter is local computer repair, so I deal with the customer side, which they are always willing to pay just so they dont have to call these horrible companies.
When I have an issue I damn well want someone to help me! After all, im saving them the headaches of dealing with the customer they dont even like!
/* end rant
Thanks, Andy. Love it! Things will change. The customer will see to it. The Internet makes all things possible. Skype, Hulu are just a couple of examples. And they’re just getting started. The web is the great democratizer. Many thanks for reading and comment.
I see the problem being the majority of people dont have a clue. They would rather sit at home and complain to the dog, the cat or the neighbor. They never go that extra step to get it out and about.
Another problem lies in the infrastructure. These companies dont care about the customer simply because they dont have to. I have always said competition makes for better business. With enough major ISPs to count on one hand, they know they can get away with it. For these companies the bottom line is that bill going out in the mail every month.
Bonnie acted as tho you were one of the majority. One of the people that doesn’t truly understand or even care for that matter. The fact is, you called her out and sniffed out the rose colored BS.
I would love to vote with my money, but where else do you go?
I think your post got me all reved up!
Thanks for the comment, Tom. However…
1. If you read the entire post, I was sure to stress (that’s what bold and italics mean) I had no personal beef with with Bonnie, and that I consider the problem to be systemic within Comcast. However, as a pure illustration of incompetent customer service, she pretty much made my case for me. Though, I admit to being from a generation that just might not understand such nuance.
2. I took it out on no one. She tried to insert herself into an issue she could not resolve. I don’t blame her for that. So, while it’s true that she couldn’t really address my specific concern, there are better ways to go about customer outreach than what was displayed above and what Comcast is famous for. Or do you dispute that?
3. She came into MY Twitterverse, disparaging observations ablazin. She posted a comment on MY blog, claiming that I hung on her (blame shifting) and refusing to take any ownership of any of it. She’s sorry THE COMPANY is trying to bilk me; and she regrets that I HUNG UP on her. Rather than apologize for HER comments, she again tries to explain the nuance to Old Man Nixon. This is customer service?
4. I’m curious how someone I don’t know and who I am in no way connected to happened upon my little ole’ blog within minutes of me posting this. Could it be that you have some skin in the game? Some connection to Bonnie or Comcast? Some particular reason to “care”?
http://bits.tombridge.com/post/519766994/do-something-nice-for-comcast-bonnie
Thanks for reading.
All I know, Tom, is that Bonnie has served me and my clients very well. I have never met Bonnie in person, and have no connection to her beyond the professional.
Your beef, as you explained, was with Comcast, but you treated Bonnie poorly in the process, and that was upsetting, as I think you acted very badly toward her when she was trying to help. You let your anger and frustration with Comcast overflow onto Bonnie, and that wasn’t very fair.
As for the hangup, are you denying that you hung up on her?
I don’t see anything in her tweets that shows you need an apology, honestly.
Awesome, Andy. Use your powers for good. You’re right, of course, about the customer AND The infrastructure. Let’s not forget that this whole thing started because THEY sent ME and I’ll-conceived marketing piece.
Mine too! Why would they send me an email promotional for NEW customers! Did they forget I send them money every month?
Posts such as this are powerful in getting the word out that we aren’t happy, that we are people and we pay them real money!
Tom-Like you, I had the same frustrations with Comcast on the phone. Whenever I’ve gotten on the phone with them I just end up wanting to throw my phone out the window. I’ve even tried to solve problems via their “online chat” which is total bs-I only got scripted answers that never solved a thing. Finally, one day I took my frustrations to Twitter because my cable service was being disrupted in a crazy way after the snowstorms that hit DC this past winter. Bonnie responded to me right away and helped solve my problem. While the same problems continued, I continued to stay in touch with Bonnie each time I had a problem because finally, FINALLY I was able to get in touch with a human being who knew what the hell they were talking about. Recently I had 3 weeks without internet due to incompetent techs who basically would say “Let’s not fix it and say we did”. Bonnie bent over backwards to get my service restored and the issues in my building fixed. She really went above and beyond what you would normally think a customer service rep at a company with Comcast’s reputation would do. She communicated with me regularly to give me updates (even if there were none) explained things to me in plain English, and basically helped me survive the craziness. I don’t know what I will do if she ever leaves Comcast. I’ve come to rely on her every time I need help or an explanation. I even recommend her to everyone on twitter. She really is the best-too bad Comcast doesn’t have more customer service reps like her. If they did maybe their reputation wouldn’t be so bad.
I completely agree with you on customer service. Sometimes companies don’t understand it. They think by having a twitter feed it will be all fine and dandy. Yet, I have been trying to help a friend with a Tweetup. I work with the organization part time and needless to say I would post a blog about it but I am not sure how I can do it in the most politically correct manner.
I have a friend who is trying to do a tweet up at this said organization and he is doing a road trip to get here. He was wondering if he could get some swag and see what could happen. He is coming to Detroit regardless. Because I am involved with this organization part time and I have been involved with customer service directly for a LONG time. I am generally concerned and wanting to fix this problem.
The organization does not respond to his tweets, and when they respond to mine, it is in a DM. Which would be fine but they are following zero people. So I can’t respond back. They mentioned how the marketing department is going to have a tweet up soon BUT that isn’t my problem. He is bringing people from Toronto and wants the social media people in Detroit to know and probably work with him. I find this totally frustrating because even though I don’t work in the marketing department I try and solve the problems I can from the outside.
It is also a use of the channel being used totally wrong. They don’t know how to use it properly. They aren’t listening to their fans at all and won’t even respond to him.
I hope you have better luck with Comcast. At least she is listening now.
So right, Jamie. Thanks for adding on.
Tom,
I understand your frustration, but I would like to make a few points here:
1) When you assume you won’t get help, you will inadvertently sabotage your own efforts to get said help.
2) When offered assistance, rather than use a level head and be appreciative that someone is trying to help, you decide to immediately come off agressive and rude. The correct course of action (in my opinion) would have been to ASK to go via DM, rather than be snarky and rude and assume she wasn’t going to do so.
3) Rather than actually SEE if Bonnie could help you, you assume she couldn’t, and thus, refuse her assistance. This point alone gives you have no room to complain about the situation.
4) This was not an attempt to sell you anything. This was simply a notice that Comcast in your area is going all-digital, and thus, the analog signals that go to older televisions will stop working after the date on the notice. They are offering FREE digital converters for those televisions. I know this because I actually READ the notice when it was sent to my parents. I didn’t even have to tell them what was going on; Comcast told them directly they were free.
5) I recommend some anger management and people skills classes. Just because this is the internet doesn’t mean you can automatically assume everyone is out to get you/rip you off/sell you something. Sure, there is lots of that going on, but this was NOT the case.
6) I understand that you say weren’t blaming Bonnie personally for this, but I would imagine, she, like most of us, takes pride in her work. With that being said, how do you feel when someone bad mouths you over something you were doing your best and putting effort into? Sorry, but you are personally blaming her. She was doing her job, and in my experience (and researching her interactions with others by reading the twitter feeds), she does a fine job of it, when the phone reps and local offices cannot.
Anyway, those are my points, take them as you will.
-Josh R.
P.S. I’m not a Comcast employee, and I do not know Bonnie personally, either.
Josh
There comes a point after so many bad customer service experiences when you can no longer give them the benefit of the doubt. Once you lose confidence in customer service its on them to bring you back. Regardless of what he said, she should have responded differently.
Why should he be pleasant and accepting after repeated phone calls, and attempts on HIS part to contact Comcast? He took time out of his day to do this and was met with utter fail.
I also fail to see him mention anything about getting a sale pitch or anything of the sort. He was sent a blanket flyer telling him he had to take immediate action, when in reality he didn’t have to take any action at all! The flyer was non targeted and wasted a bunch of his time.
This could have all been avoided by NOT sending a flyer with “ACTION REQUIRED” as the biggest print on the page!
Regardless of how snarky, pissy, or rude the customer is the rep needs to be neutral and try to solve the problem.
Josh, you seem to be operating under the mistaken impression that I was looking for help. I was not. Or perhaps you are mistaken that I woke up yesterday hoping to spend several minutes trying to investigate a vaguely worded urgent call to action from a service provider I am already overpaying. I was not. You further seem to be under the impression that is my first experience with Comcast customer service. Sadly, it was not. Nor does it appear that my experience is unique to me. Google “comcast sucks” if. You don’t believe me.
And, anger management? Really.
Thanks for reading, and for providing an entertaining read.
Oh, and i envy you that you have time to follow someone else’s Twitter feeds, just to see how they’re coming along in life, as you claim to have with Bonnie’s. Sounds like someone with no personal connection to me! Cheers.
BTW how did she find your blog post so fast? Shes the first comment..
Really, Josh? No connection to Bonnie beyond the professional? You issue a passionate plea for your friends to support her “Honeymoon Fund,” and you profess to know what a great guy her husband/fiance is, but you have no personal connection to her whatsoever? Interesting.
http://bits.tombridge.com/post/519766994/do-something-nice-for-comcast-bonnie
Tom,
Did you mean for this to go to me and not Josh?
Tom
Andy, there seems to be a remarkable number of Comcast promoters who have miraculously stumbled upon this blog, each armed with their own unique story of customer service prowess. And in record time! Fancy that. This blog gets more tumbleweeds than clicks on a normal basis, but all of a sudden, it’s a hit! How could that POSSIBLY be?
It’s due to the fact that some of my followers caught wind of the post. There are far more success stories in my 75K tweets than poor ones. I try to connect with people where they already are… which is twitter. The only thing I do is try to help folks, improve processes, identify faults, and change the way our company does things. It’s not an easy nor quick task to accomplish. Five years ago, this was a completely different company. Now, it’s (slowly) moving in the right direction, but old habits die hard.
FYI: I asked about your musicianship because I was formerly a music teacher, and have been playing cello for 16 years (since I was 9). that’s all :/
I look at it like this, personally. No matter who you go with. Comcast, XFinity, DirecTV, UVerse, FiOS, the space station, blah blah blah. Customer service will always be an issue to those who are not patient.
I say this as I’m personally someone who’s had my run in with Comcast. The truth is, just like internet marketing and the many other things of life, people are impatient. They want things to happen at the snap of a finger.
Patience is the key to success, yet many lack it.
Now what would be a pain in the ass would be to have a run around or for the customer service to make you feel like shit. And for lack of better terms, throw you out to the fishes with a “we can’t figure it out, sorry, that’s all we can say.”
Have patience though, and yeah, Twitter is a fair medium of contact. Honestly, not every “old timer” knows about it like us younger generation do. But then again, what the hell do us younger generation know about some of the things you “older generation” know. Ya’ll are the ones with the experience in a sense, us younger generation have to use tools to help ourselves.
I guess what I’m getting at is first, have patience. Second off, if you need help with something, dont be afraid to ask. And if the response doesnt come in a REASONABLE time, the by all means, rant all you want, but give Comcast a chance here.
We’re all just people in the end, not superheros.
Just my .02 useless cents!
God, it pains me to defend Comcast, but from reading your blog post and your screenshots, I’d have to put the blame on you. You clearly over-reacted, but of course you won’t see it this way judging by the way you respond to anyone here who has made a comment disagreeing with you.
For those questioning whether or not Mr. Nixon made a comment on getting bilked by a big company, there’s no way for his blog readers to really know what went on during his and ComcastBonnie’s telephone conversation. Just because he never posted anything about it does not mean it didn’t happen. It doesn’t mean that it did happen either, but here we’re dealing with a person who didn’t get his way the first time around and is now whining about it. He clearly wants to make his side of the story very compelling so that you will side with him. The post is filled with emotion and very little actual non-biased facts.
Rant and rave all you want Mr. Nixon, but I have no sympathy for you.
I have been following Comcast Bonnie for a good bit now and all problems with Comcast Service aside the one place i know i can go for help is twitter. I am treated fairly and respected. Don’t take your frustrations out on someone when you obviously don’t know how social media works. Firstly if you are ranting and raving about something it becomes not private and you can get over it. Secondly, the whole purpose of twitter is that everyone knows your problem and can help you. not so you can bitch about all your problems. if you want to do that go to myspace, set your mood to angry and have as big of a fit as you want. Thirdly and finally, think before you post then mabey you wont get a bunch of comments telling you to take the tampon out of your puckered cheeks.
I’ve had the opposite experience with Comcast. When I have an issue, I call or tweet, and it’s resolved relatively painlessly. (My customer service nightmares have been exclusive to Sony… might as well shoot myself in the foot before calling them.) Comcast has always treated me well. The activation hotline for the digital adapters was a breeze and by far the best systems I’ve found… no “did you say?” prompts and I never had to repeat a word. Also, if you’re really having an issue, give this method a try: http://consumerist.com/2006/06/be-a-customer-service-ninja.html
My, the Comcast apologists have certainly come out in droves overnight. Again: curious. Unfortunately, you, like Comcast, have conveniently missed the point. Perhaps a re-read is in order.
What’s interesting to me is that, in every other channel in which this blog post is being discussed online, not one person has come to the defense of Comcast. Not one. Why? Because Comcast cannot find those conversations. They are on private social networks, or in fora that Comcast is clearly not monitoring.
The whole point is this: Comcast engaged ME as their customer via THEIR proactive outreach. But THEY did not have the proper mechanism or process in place to bring their call to action to conclusion. Website didn’t work; phone call didn’t work. Instead, I was caught in a circuitous and inescapable trap of customer service hell. This is on Comcast, plain and simple…not me. Further, the company fancies itself a progressive customer service organization, presumably because they use Twitter. Neat.
What the above and the ensuing comments clearly demonstrate is that Twitter is clearly NOT the platform for customer service remediation. Sure, it might be a great tool for discovery and a conduit for connections, but it clearly lacks in the area of SERVICE. At 140 characters and the inherent disconnect between text and intent/emotion, you can see how any exchange can be misinterpreted and leave the receiving party left wanting.
I have no reason to doubt that Bonnie is anything but excellent at her job. But many counsel their clients in this space that a.) you should work to take a conversation private if at possible, and into a better medium than Twitter; and b.) don’t interject into someone’s issue unless you’re confident that you can fix the problem.
But this was not intended to be a debate about whether Twitter is the proper medium to reach out to customers…you all can fight that fight without me. My point is clearly this: Comcast started this mess, with no strategy on how to resolve it to the satisfaction of the customer. They still think that a form letter, an ineffectual Internet flail, and an automated phone operator constitute customer service. Comcast failed, it continues to fail, and technology is not their savior. It’s a company and business-practice issue; not a technology issue.
Gee, where have I seen this before, Mr. Nixon? If you want real people to listen to your problems, perhaps you should learn how to write good posts. What I think the real problem with most bloggers, including yourself Mr. Nixon, is that you feel self righteous and over empowered because you can write your feelings for the whole world to see.
Yes, Comcast does not do a stellar job with customer service, as with most other large companies. However, what you are slowly seeing is a cultural change in such a large organization. This doesn’t happen over night. Twitter is one new mean for them to reach out to their customers and dare I say that the vast majority of their issues that come up on Twitter are solved without problem.
Your blog post about your experience could have been more productive if you left the majority of your emotion out of it.
Oh, and I should make one more note. The most probable reason why you do not see people coming to the defense of Comcast in your other outlets should be quite obvious to you. To quote you “Why? Because Comcast cannot find those conversations. They are on private social networks, or in fora that Comcast is clearly not monitoring.”
Hmmm private social networks. Could it be that you surround yourself with like-minded people online? Welcome to the public forum called the internet, my friend. You made this particular post public so you will get both sides. Sorry for making your life a bit less of an utopia.
Whine, whine, whine. It’s so cooool to whine about bad customer service from Comcast. I have gotten bad customer service from Comcast, I get it — last year our cable & internet were out for a full week because of a cold snap, and it took the tech 5 minutes to fix the problem, but it took them a week to get anyone out to us. But this year, it was finally twitter that solved a problem for us – and later twitter again came through to answer a question for me. (Note: in neither case was it actually Bonnie who helped me.)
Bonnie offered to help you. You were free at that point to not take her up on that offer. But you did engage her, and then you got rude. Treat people like human beings, not corporate shills, and don’t take every piece of direct mail you get as some kind of attack. I got several of those converter-box pieces in the mail too, and guess what? I READ THEM. We already have digital cable, so I just tossed them. No need to hassle with websites or automated numbers.
I checked bonnie’s status to see if I could contact her again today for a DVR issue. Wow Tom. Bonnie would pretty much walk your dog, do your laundry & babysit your kids with how far she’s gone out of her way.
How many other companies will get back to you this quickly on Twitter? I can only think of a handful that will reply within 1-2 hours, let alone reply numerous times as well as followup on your personal blog.
It sounds like you’re really unhappy with Bonnie trying to go out of her way for you. There’s a handful of other places to go for service. DISH & Direct TV are the two largest that come time mind. I was a DISH subscriber, but was lied to, over charged, & overcharged again when I canceled the service.
I most definitely didn’t stick it to the service guys that came out.
So many people are replying to your thread because they think it’s a bit crazy to continue to be unhappy & put Bonnie down.
I’ve been unhappy with service several times in my life. Ultimately, you have control. Bonnie’s there to help people and it looks like she does that often enough.
I see that Bonnie posted a link to this blog last night, hence the army of supporters.
http://twitter.com/ComcastBonnie/status/18654909931
Well done. Is this part of the new customer service paradigm I’m unfamiliar with? Attack the messenger?
Also, check the randomly generated related post at the top:
http://bigrips.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/seth-hates-comcast/
Another whiner, I suppose. We can choose to deny the truth, or face it. I didn’t invent Comcast’s reputation last night. There’s a reason it predated my post, and you’re seeing the reasons above why it will live on long past it.
I have Wide Open West and do not know of a Wide Open West Bonnie. I also have never had the need to look for her.
I swore off Comcast around 1995. I chose to never give any of my money to them ever again after years of frustration just like yours. More lost signal than any of the satellite companies I have used, extremely poor service, and a “monopolistic” approach to their business model.
I try to convince others to follow, but they seem to be willing to go on complaining and being frustrated; but unwilling to have their house re-wired or their email addy change.
I wanted to quote this out because it highlights the point that Tom is trying to make but which is being ignored by the Comcast Bonnie Defense Force:
That there are Comcast Bonnies is great. But, there should not be a need for Comcast Bonnies. If Comcast was actually doing things right, they wouldn’t have a critical mass of unhappy and outright disgruntled customers who are unable to get help through traditional channels such as phone support. And as nice as Bonnie’s friendliness and good customer service is (I’d love for someone to walk my dog and do my laundry), ultimately, she can’t make a whit of difference because Comcast’s problems are systemic, from the incompetent or rude installers to the phone reps who aren’t capable of actually helping.
You shouldn’t need to elevate the kind of customer service issue Tom had, and that’s the point here.