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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.)
Disgusting, but very innovative way to generate a reality-distortion field around their true customer service.
I hope the secret code is 'shibboleet'.
John
You assume that every Comcast customer is personal friends with a Comcast employee? Why these cards are given to low ranking pawns I have no idea, but discrimination against customers based on their perceive influence should not be a surprising behavior from a company operating in an industry that is prone to "natural monopolies"(in a regulatory environment that hasn't taken significant anti-trust action since the 1990s).
You get service if you have a card, otherwise you are to use the oh-so-helpful forums.
Oh wait, you have to have working internet before you can get there! Better hope you have a card!
Hmm, actually I may have though of one. Maybe this card will do it?
...and therefore, it must be true.
Yes, every employee is given these cards, but no they do nothing to "fast track" support. What they do is help a customer get more help and final resolution to issues that they typical tier 1 and 2 tech support can't help with. It is an admission that their tech support sucks, but it's not some special pass to get a customer something they don't otherwise deserve. Nor are they used for bribery purposes.
Basically, the original story is full of shit. But that's not terribly surprising around here, sometimes.
For the record, I'm a former Comcast employee and am not in any way defending their practices.
Jason Van Patten
Important people get preferential treatment all the time. I've got a nice chunk of change stored at my bank. Ever since I put it there, my customer service calls have been diverted directly to Executive Customer Service. I don't even have to do anything. My phone number is linked to my account so my calls go straight there, picked up by Frank or Veronica in Texas before the third ring. I rarely need to call them but it's nice not to sit in a queue like a schmuck listening to hold music warble in and out.
And what's the deal with hold music? Why is it always distorted and fading in and out? Shouldn't we be able to fix that by now?
So they know their service is crappy. But instead of improving it, which would require actual work, they hide it from the people who make decisions. Every person that accepts one of these cards and does not put it online for public use is corrupt. But I guess being corrupt is normal in the US.
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
The story is BS.
Every employee at Comcast gets 3 cards a year.
The idea is that if you see or hear someone who's having a problem, you can give them a card and they get a better experience.
The number on the card is a single use number. Thus, once used, it's tied to a specific account/issue, and can never be used again.
Second, it's only good for Residential services (Business services have separate support numbers and staff)
Third, it only bypasses Tier 1 customer support (newly hired users, who are still trying to figure out all the tools, and the problems,; once you're competent enough on enough systems, you can be promoted to Tier 2.)
Thus, if you want the same situation, call in to comcast, and immediate ask to speak to their supervision or a Tier 2 rep; or simply BS that your call was dropped while the issue was being escalated, etc.
Fourth, only a small number of employees actually use the cards. There was a drive to try to convince staff to jus give them out to anybody with a problem; even to friends of friends, or to strangers on the train talking about comcast. Just get them out there.
As the cards are basically tied into the Residential Support system, it doesn't help with Retentions, Service Cancellation, or other non Technical issues with your service. Not sure about billing.
I know when I was at Comcast, I didn't use my cards on friends. Someone complained on twitter about their comcast service, I gave them one of my cards. I gave one to a women I met on a flight; and the last I just lost.
Friends I would direct to call and tell them which keywords to use about their problem so that custrep can find the issue and fix it. (since they're basicaly just using a search engine to try to find out which of the 100,000s of issues your symtoms could match to; which leads to basically hundreds of questions to try to narrow it down, if they haven't experienced your particual problem before)
Verizon in NYC had a similar help line escalation.
When I moved to a new apartment, and switched my phone, it didn't work and they couldn't get it working for a month. (Probably because they were trying to get rid of their land lines in favor of fiber optic, so they let their twisted pair maintenance crew decline.)
I was dealing with the usual tech support hell (on hold for half an hour, transferred call and dropped, supervisors who promised to return my call and never did, etc.).
Finally I called somebody by mistake in Staten Island who gave me the number of the "President's hot line". I called them up, got somebody who was actually helpful, made some calls for me, and got it working again. (Apparently their digital switches were malprogrammed. Give me the old solenoids back.)
A while later I was having trouble again so I called the President's hot line again. It wasn't working any more.
(Pro tip: When I really got fed up, I called my state assemblyman, Dick Gottfried, on the theory that Verizon is regulated by and accountable to the State. One of his staffers called Verizon, and straightened it out, even though it was Friday evening before the weekend.
So maybe that's the kind of thing that was going on with Comcast. If the service is federally regulated, your congressman should be able to call them up in your behalf and hold them accountable. And they can do it for themselves. I don't think it's outrageous for a politician to get that favor as long as they use it for their constituents too.)
* * *
I like copper wire. So sue me.
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.
The story is BS. All employees do not get the cards to hand out. I have several friends that still work at Comcast, and none of them have the cards or have heard of them before this story broke.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I bet lots of companies do it - sign up for their most expensive credit card, or phone plan, or cable package and the number you call prioritizes you in the queue. The reason of course is simple - they care more about keeping the cash cows happy more than the scum signed up on the basic package.
Monkeyboy(David Gregory) was a horrible host of Meet the Press. Chuck Todd isn't an improvement. The entire show is just a group handjob.
I honestly don't see your clarification as any better. If people are encouraged to hand those cards out sort of as a perk for knowing someone who works there, what exactly is that saying about your company's Tier 1 service? If not having to go through that layer is a special favor, then clearly even the company is acknowledging that it is an unpleasant experience for the poor sucke--er--customers stuck using it.
Perhaps I'm out of touch - last time I watched broadcast TV Fox News was one of the major players.
And did I say anything about the relative merits of other "news" stations? I simply chose the station that I suspected was one of AC's preffered disinformation channels.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
You wouldn't like it. Sometimes the guys don't shave. :D
[John]
Shit better not happen!
This also makes this community look really uninformed. The first sight of anything about Comcast and people just start saying random bullshit.
It's my understanding - I heard this from a guy that had a roommate who worked in a Comcast call center - that once a week, they have a "motivational" meeting where fresh babies are sacrificed and eaten.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
To reiterate Roodvlees' point, the giving of the cards and the receiving of the cards is corruption. It may not be obvious what the dollar value is immediately, but if you count up the time saved by the politically-connected recipients when they get expedited service, then it almost certainly would exceed Federal standards for gifts.
Tier one service is adequate for 70-80% of the people calling in.
of the above calls, the issue is resolved in one call for 95% of the time.
It's the deeper problems that require Engineering Insight, or learning customer state, or escalating to what's effectively Tier 5 support, to escalate to Engineers that cause issues. (tier 2 and above get logged; and increase in weight; usually driving bug-fixes and Engineering time)
The issue is more that no-one has figureud out a way to actually enable good Customer Support.
This is an ongoing problem and there is no good solution in the wild yet.
State 1: There are only a few visible symptoms, and end-customers usually have no idea what's going on.
State 2: There are literally hundreds of systems internally that affect the customer
State 3: For these 10-20 symptoms, there are 100,000s of possible problems.
Problem 1: Hiring hundreds of call centre workers for $10/hr, many of whom have little technical background.
Problem 2: Trying to teach these people everything about Engineering, IT, Infrastructure, Systems Architecture, Hardware, Interaction issues, Software Service Issues, Billing Systems, Switching Systems, etc.... and not quit becasue they now know more than most Engineers.
PRoblem 3: Because Problem 2 never happens, how does the CS agent search for the solution for your particular problem?
You state symptom 1, 2, and 3.
CS does a search, there are 80,000 possible problems.
CS asks you a question to try to limit.
You perform, and answer.
CS enters that in, there are now 50,000 possible problems.
[repeat until there's a reasonable number]
This leads to Problem 4: Users lie, or misinterpret. If they answer any question wrong, or perform an action incorrectly and give a unknowningly false response, that just filtered out their actual problem, and their problem will never get resolved on that call.
Things like "reboot your modem" are good filters, as that eliminates thousands of possible issues if it causes no change. If you don't actually do this (depending on the problem, they would actually send reset signals, and then require you to reboot; many techincally competent people don't reboot when asked, and thus ) a problem which normally would be fixed with a reboot, isn't, simply because the end-user assumed becasue they rebooted before and it did nothing.
Now, if anyone can design a system that allows unskilled end-users, to communicate their issues, and allow unskilled CS workers to search and find the solution, that would make millions.
For people who ask "train them more" As a fully trained CS degree, Engineering degree, and Engineer at Comcast, I would say that I have no insight as to how hundreds of systems interact or data-relays function. Within my realm, there are thosands of things that can go wrong, thousands that should never happen (yet somehow do, possibly becaues of CS reps changing state on an account without realising the impact). I can fix many issues. But bceause I have this breadth of technical skill, understanding, and knowledge -- would I work CustSupport? No.
If you want better Customer Support, figure out how to make it enticing for highly skilled, trained engineers to work phone jobs; and enough of them to support millions of customers.