As many of those unfortunately caught in the massive debacle that was the switch from Insight to Comcast in Champaign-Urbana know - Comcast sucks. They killed internet connections to 10s of thousands of people without a thought to the effect that would have on a town with so many people relying on the internet for their primary reason for living here - school.
Ah... but now I have found out just how truly BADLY Comcast sucks - by having to resolve the fiasco that is their telephone system for handling customer calls.
Five commercial accounts are handled through this office. Five, 3 cable, 2 internet, for bulk lines to serve a couple of hundred people. Fortunately, our IT consultant knew what was going on with the whole internet disconnect fiasco, and was able to get our customers back online in a matter of hours, instead of the days it took many folks to recover their services.
Well... guess what. The handoff of the accounts and contracts didn't go very smoothly between Insight to Comcast - or Comcast didn't bother to look at anything but the dollars charged, without regard to signed contracts or service periods.
Two of the bills (so far) are wrong. No big deal you think, right? Wrong.
The number on the bills to deal with problems goes to their residential service department.
In the last week, I have spoken with just under 40 different people at Comcast, on 5 different phone calls (2 disconnected, 2 hung up on me), with total time spent over 3 hours. Three... freaking... hours.
One of them gave me a fax number to send in the problem paperwork. Which I did. Nine days ago. They said they would call right back when they saw it. I have re-sent that fax every day for those 9 days. Still no return call.
And a call to their headquarters in Philadelphia? Nothing but a busy signal to the number 215-665-1700. Nothing... but... busy.
Too busy hauling in profits with crappy service maybe?
Anyway, that pissed me off, even more than you can imagine, that a giant billionbucks corporation doesn't have overflow lines to at LEAST route calls to voice mail or the janitor. Something, you'd think. Nope.
So, I looked at their corporate governance. Wrote a nice email to one of their Board members, detailing the fiasco here in Champaign-Urbana, along with the completely atrocious way they handle their commercial customers.
I hope some PhD student in business administration does their thesis on Comcast - and how not to conduct business.
- WThomasPayne's blog
- 619 reads
On behalf of Comcast I would
On behalf of Comcast I would like to apologize for your experience. This should never have happened to a valued Customer. I will make sure to share this feedback with the appropriate members of our team. If you need further assistance, please feel free to contact me at the email address below.
Thank you for being a Comcast Customer!
Frank Eliason
Comcast Executive Offices
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com
Now, wouldn't it have been
Now, wouldn't it have been cool if you had actually given me a a telephone number to call you? Go scour your fax machine for all of the written correspondence - you can waste some of YOUR time on this, too.
You know what. It is my
You know what. It is my understanding that the cable
company has an exclusive franchise in the CU area.
I have been told that this is done so that the cities
of CU can extract more money from insightbb, now
comcast to pay for monopoly protection. Maybe customers
should call their city councilman and complain too.
After all, it is the twin cities that will not let
competition in.
That is my understanding of it anyway. I am going to
check it out.
Steve
Monopolies are evil unless
Monopolies are evil unless the people have a say in how they operate.
A good book on customer
A good book on customer service and some major realignment might be needed, but today I received word that these two accounts have been resolved to my satisfaction.
Three more to go - I hope they aren't quite the mess the first two were.
I came across your site and
I came across your site and had to chime in. I just moved to Champaign and started service with Comcast. Since April 18th, I've had 11 calls into Comcast customer service. I've been disconnected, told I called the wrong number for my problem, and my favorite was when I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told "we don't have actual supervisors, but anyway, they're all in a meeting right now". I've been without cable service a total of 4 days since I started service. And when my cable was FINALLY buried, they cut it and put me out of service for 2 1/2 days. The tech that came out was the best person so far I've talked to. He apologized for the poor service and noted on my ticket to expedite the bury of my NEW cable within the next week. That was May 22, still no bury. So I called today and low and behold, no record of an expedite request...yet it was there when I signed the paperwork that day! And when I told the girl "well, I guess I'll just call back when one of the 3 neighbors whose yard my cable is running across mows over it and cuts it then"....her reply to me was "okay". Dish Network, here I come.....
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