Comcast Cares (no, really! they do!)

[Hamer]

I'm the last person to praise a huge telecommunications company, but Comcast is really doing something pretty awesome.

I use Twitter which is this dumb microblogging thing, but it's cool for nerds which I am. Anyway! There's this dude on Twitter, named Frank, who is actually a Comcast employee.
http://twitter.com/comcastcares
He's a customer service guy of some sort, and he does keyword searches on Twitter and is very proactive about helping people out. You can probably tell by reading some of his "tweets".

I found him randomly because when my service got installed I twitter something like "enjoying the hell out of my Comcast cable and internet" and he replied to my tweet saying "Cool!". That's sort of how I found him, and starting noticing what he does.

Tonight I could not for the life of me figure out why my TV said "HD" in the corner, but the picture still looked like ass - so I tweeted about it (again, I'm a huge nerd) - and within maybe 30 minutes I got a reply giving me some options to troubleshoot the problem. I had already figured out what was wrong, but I was blown away that this guy was ON IT - even on a Sunday night.

It's really nice to get straight answers to even rhetorical questions about my Comcast service - from someone who I didn't have to wait 45 minutes to talk to.

If you have Comcast, this is probably the best reason to sign up for Twitter. If you Twitter and you have Comcast - you should follow this guy. It's like... the best customer service experience I've ever had.

And he told me the Chicago market is going to get TiVo DVRs soon! Yayyyy!

Oh, and if you're not a huge nerd and just want this guy to help you:
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com
frank_eliason@cable.comcast.com

Awesome.

[Arnie]

I had a bad experience with Comcast and posted about it on my blog a while back and got a comment from that same guy.

I think it's an interesting strategy. Of course, the other side of it is, Comcast has so many disgruntled customers on-line that they need someone making nice on Twitter and Blogger.

Then again, all cable providers are pretty bad. I don't know that Comcast is any worse than any others.

[timalimdim]

I'm all for innovation, but this feels like a gimmick designed to gloss over a customer service and overall quality of service track record that's pretty shoddy. It's the largest cable company in the country, so it's fairly overextended, and has a pretty big target on its back. Still, with traditional phone companies like Verizon making big headway into video (and using customer service as a key differentiator), Comcast needs more than a couple of guys on Twitter.

[Telfer]

What bothers me is that this is likely:

1) A sad underpaid dude at Comcast who needs to get out more.
2) 200 dudes from India sharing a Comcast and Twitter login.

I guess it could also be a well-paid technophile at Comcast who came up with a creative way to get a promotion and is being compensated by his employer. But in the end, I still find it depressing that the guy who ends up coming to your house to fix your cable is a terrifying imbecile. Oh that Frankie could fix THAT.

Also, Comcast is better than AT&T.

[Hendo]

I hate to do this, because I really used to HATE Comcast... but I think they've gotten better. And not a little better, A LOT better.

I think it's because AT&T is coming into the marketplace soon in direct competition on the cable side (they're already competing on the dish side). And they'll probably be cheaper.

But the last two times I've had appointments with Comcast (once for instillation and once for repair), they not only had someone call that morning to confirm my time, but the repair person showed up in the FIRST hour of the four hour window. Compare that to two appointments they completely blew off a few years ago.

And their service on the phone is much better now, too.

Again, I think it has everything to do with more competition.

[timalimdim]

Originally Posted by Hendo

I hate to do this, because I really used to HATE Comcast... but I think they've gotten better. And not a little better, A LOT better.

I think it's because AT&T is coming into the marketplace soon in direct competition on the cable side (they're already competing on the dish side). And they'll probably be cheaper.

But the last two times I've had appointments with Comcast (once for instillation and once for repair), they not only had someone call that morning to confirm my time, but the repair person showed up in the FIRST hour of the four hour window. Compare that to two appointments they completely blew off a few years ago.

And their service on the phone is much better now, too.

Again, I think it has everything to do with more competition.

I agree that more competition is good. I don't know if AT&T is enough. Its U-Verse IPTV service has been slow to roll out, and isn't getting the same rave reviews that telcos are getting with fiber-to-the-home rollouts. (Verizon FiOS is one example, but smaller phone companies are actually even more successful with FTTH rollouts, statistically...)

Still, over time, all of these services will spread and Comcast will have no choice but to keep up or lose market share. Customers, increasingly, don't care where their bits come from (much like many comedy audiences... )

(Am I right? )


(... are we not doing "bit" bits?)

Therefore, quality and customer care are top priority. Yeah, Comcast may be improving here and there. However, they arguably have the deepest hole from which to dig out.

Remember this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...111200137.html

And this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvVp7b5gzqU

Maybe it isn't fair, but Comcast has a lot to overcome, image-wise, when it comes to customer service.

[Hamer]

That's all true, for sure.

I know it's one guy, and I'm fairly certain he falls under the category of "paid very well". I heard about him on a tech podcast (I believe This Week in Tech). He was on the show that episode, and plugged his Twitter name. It wasn't until he responded out of the blue to one of my tweets about Comcast that I actually started noticing what he does.

I found an article that explains this whole thing a little better than I originally did.

A lot of people are annoyed that a huge company like this seems to be "infiltrating" social media. But I think they're using it in a really cool way.

[Amharclann]

Its pretty well known that Comcast have had appalling service (high speed internet) for the last several months. I had to post an open letter on their public forums for my connection to get magically better.

[sigh]

10-to-1 odds Hamer is Comcastcares

You on the clock, buddy?

[Hamer]

haha... nope. Although it sounds pretty good to make a shit ton more than I make now just to Twitter all day long.