Comcast Shoots For New Image, Rebranding As Xfinity

artemis writes "Comcast is making efforts to repair and restore its 'former glory' by the act of transformation, rebranding itself as Xfinity. Hopefully step 2 is an actual change in quality and customer service. 'Comcast will use the Xfinity rebranding to talk up its improved customer service as well as its technical upgrades. “There’s a lot to be proud of,’’ said Steve Hackley, Comcast’s senior vice president for the Greater Boston region. “We want to take credit for it.’’ W2 Group’s Weber said such a rebranding is “a bit old-fashioned’’ and a new name is unlikely to impress consumers. “I think the public is smarter than that now,’’ he said.'"

Comments

Yeah, and Blackwater is now called Xe.

[EWAdams]

It ain't gonna help, guys. You're still in seriously deep trouble.

bad branding

[tverbeek]

I really don't see how a harder-to-pronounce name will make the company any more appealing to customers.

Name change = shame

[goodmanj]

Nobody changes their name because they "want to take credit" for things they're "proud of".

Comcast, do you really want to have your name mentioned alongside Phillip Morris ... errr, "Altria"? At least you're not *killing* your customers.

its still comcrap to me

[jmanforever]

Xfinity sounds like it should be the name of a sports car company... or perhaps an adult film company.

You know

[Sycraft-fu]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that your name is NOT your problem. I'm going to say that your problem is that you suck ass at providing service. You can change the name all you like, so long as your service blows, people are going to hate on you. Conversely, fix the service and it won't be a problem.

Seriously, I'm amazed how bad Comcast is. Where I live, both Cox and Comcast provide cable service of the TV, Internet and phone variety. Which you get depends on which part of the city you live in. I live in the Cox area. In general, I'm happy with them. They aren't prefect, but they are pretty good. They fix their problems, their speeds are good, etc, etc. My friends on Cox seem to feel the same way.

Not long ago my parents came to visit, and stayed in a condo owned by friends of theirs. This condo was in a Comcast area. I couldn't believe how bad it was. Not even dealing with tech support, just general usage. The net was amazingly slow, their DVR was a massive POS, etc, etc. I made very little use of it and I found it to be poor quality. I can't imagine how dissatisfied someone who uses it all the time is.

Rebranding won't fix shit. You have to fix your quality if you want people to respect your brand.

Seriously?

[algormortis]

“I think the public is smarter than that now,’’

Everyone knows this isn't true. Why do you think Comcast still has customers?

Re:Seriously?

[Pojut]

Because of people like me who live in an area where my choices are Comcast or Dial-up.

Meaningless names

[fiannaFailMan]

WTF is it with this trend of conjuring up completely meaningless words to use as company names?

On NPR in the mornings I hear about a company that used to be called Horn Murdoch and Cole (a sensible name that tells you they've been around for a while and actually means something) who for some unfathomable reason decided to call themselves "Acretive Solutions," or something. I mean, aside from the impossibility of being able to tell if it's "Acretive" or "Acrative" just by listening to it, what the hell is that supposed to mean? It sounds almost like "Excretive" which calls to mind images of someone taking a dump!

Accenture, Cingular, Elementis, Altria, I mean, what the fuck is that? At least the idiots at "Consignia" had the sense to revert back to the name that everyone understood and recognized for decades, i.e. 'Royal Mail.'

Sheesh!

There's a transcript here of a BBC radio show talking about this very subject.

Re:Xfinity equals...

[brkello]

I understand your frustration but your expectations are way way too high at that level of support. Talking about color channels will just confuse them. You have to talk "dumb" to them and they have to follow their script. This is how you would have to say it:

"Hi, my picture looks funny." They then read from their script and do the things you have already done. You can't do it out of order, or they get lost. Then finally. "Ok, it looks like it is a problem on our end, I'll send someone out."

I know that sucks for us people who are technical...but it makes sense. No one with real technical experience is going to work that job. We would all get better paying ones elsewhere. Just have to know how to talk to them to minimize how long you are on the phone with them.