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Comcast's Lobbyists Hand Out VIP Cards To Skip the Customer Service Wait
An anonymous reader writes: A lengthy story about how David Gregory lost his job hosting Meet the Press holds an interesting tidbit: Comcast's team of lobbyists regularly hands out VIP cards to influential (and influence-able) people in Washington that lets them bypass normal customer service and fast-track their support problems. "Its government-affairs team carried around 'We'll make it right' cards stamped with 'priority assistance' codes for fast-tracking help and handed them out to congressional staffers, journalists, and other influential Washingtonians who complained about their service.
A Comcast spokeswoman says this practice isn't exclusive to DC; every Comcast employee receives the cards, which they can distribute to any customer with cable or internet trouble. Nevertheless, efforts like this one have surely helped Comcast boost its standing inside the Beltway and improve its chances of winning regulatory approval for its next big conquest: merging with the second-largest cable provider in the country, Time Warner Cable." (The David Gregory article is worth a look on it's own, too; it shows how Comcast's purchase of NBC has led to interference in NBC's attempts at real journalism.)
Hi, former Comcast support representative here.
Those cards do nothing, they're just placebos.
You dial the support number and punch in the code, and the switch drops you right into the same queue with everyone else.
At the call center we called them "idiot cards" because you'd have to be one to think they were any benefit to you.
We usually handed them out ironically to the least deserving customers.
We can call it the "Comcast Support Fast-Lane"