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.)

Comments

Bloody Innovative

[skegg]

Disgusting, but very innovative way to generate a reality-distortion field around their true customer service.

Re:Bloody Innovative

[ProfessionalCookie]

We can call it the "Comcast Support Fast-Lane"

Re:Bloody Innovative

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Notably Hollywood people, lest one appear on a talk show and casually drop the terrible service they received on airline X, costing the company millions.

There was a pregnant woman in Detroit who, while boarding a plane, was shoved violently aside by such an airline goon, striving to get to the Hollywood person aboard already to serve them. As it turns out, the pregnant woman happened to be a columnist for the Detroit Free Press.

It didn't go so well for the airline.

Ob XKCD

[plover]

I hope the secret code is 'shibboleet'.

Re:Ob XKCD

[ihtoit]

Andrews & Arnold Ltd (also known as AAISP) is an Internet service provider based in Bracknell in the United Kingdom founded in 1997 and launched in 1998, primarily serving businesses and "technical" home users.

In 2009 the company was judged the best niche provider in the Thinkbroadband Customer Service Awards, based on customer ratings and again in 2010.

The company's owner, Adrian Kennard (RevK), stated in a blog post that as of October 2010 the company is "XKCD/806" compliant, referring to XKCD comic number 806. This means that technical support callers who say the code word "shibboleet" will be transferred to a technical support representative who knows at least two programming languages, and presumably can offer more useful advice than a standard tech support script.
Andrews & Arnold is one of the rare ISPs in the United Kingdom to provide IPv6 to home customers, for free.

Andrews & Arnold are strong advocates of not censoring Internet connections. Adrian Kennard has several blog postings discussing why Internet censorship as discussed in the UK is not workable, providing background for AAISP's decision.

Re:Right...

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

I Read it on the IntardWebz....

[jvp]

...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.

Re:I Read it on the IntardWebz....

[NicBenjamin]

If used properly they should probably be given to newish customers who have a difficult problem the front-line support guys will need to escalate to Tier 2 anyway. But these ones were being handed out to important people solely because those people are important, so I'd say they're by definition being used for "bribery purposes."

The bribe here isn't in the fact that Rep. Jackass and Sen. Blowhard have actually been given something great normal people don't have access to, it's that Jackass and Blowhard think they've been given access to something great normal people don't have. That's a hell of an ego boost, and it'll make those two guys a lot more sympathetic to the guy who handed them the card. In many ways it's the ideal bribe -- in monetary terms it's worth virtually nothing (maybe $10), but it's recipients probably think it's worth a lot because they think it will allow them to totally bypass the most hated customer service system in the country.

To hide the bad service regular people get?

[Roodvlees]

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.

Re:To hide the bad service regular people get?

[Trailer Trash]

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.

I spent 10-15 hair-pulling minutes yesterday with my 71 year old stepfather (whom I otherwise love dearly) as I, well, let me start from the beginning.

He called and said "We've broken flash on both Macs and can't watch youtube videos now. I've installed it twice on your mom's Mac but it didn't help."

So, I explained that 1) they didn't break anything, flash quits working automatically when it's outdated and waits for you to update it and 2) he didn't "install" it, he merely downloaded it and these two actions are not the same thing.

He apparently couldn't figure out where to download it from and I didn't want him to wander to some web site that would purport to give him flash while giving him something else so I sent him the official link from Adobe. So he went to that link.

I did, too, just so I would know what he would see. I asked if it popped up the box about downloading flash and he assured me that it didn't. He started getting frustrated around this point. (Note that it actually had downloaded and he hadn't paid attention to what he clicked). It was here that he claimed that his only option was to pay $9.99/month for "something called PS and LR - I have no idea what that is" (it's "Photoshop and Light Room" for those wondering).

I'll spare you some pain and just say that he finally found the download, which is in some popup thing on the dock at the bottom. He couldn't figure out how to open it and claimed that when he clicked it it wouldn't do anything. I tried to get him to drag it to the desktop but it finally just opened. I doubt he clicked on it the first 10 times he claimed that he did.

Now, at this point he is looking at the installer for the easiest piece of software in the world to install. He cannot proceed as there is no option to proceed. I ask him to tell me what he sees and (it's different than mine - no idea why - maybe because I have Yosemite) he says something about some license and there's a quit button. Oh, wait, there's an install button but it's black and I can't use it. So he clicks "quit" and says "well, it went away and isn't doing anything".

I asked him what he did and he said "I clicked the quit button, I couldn't do anything else and that doesn't seem to be doing anything".

I convince him to open it back up. I tell him there has to be something else to click. Then he says "there's a bunch of stuff!". I ask him if the browser is open and he replies "well, I don't know but there's a bunch of stuff." I suspect that he's clicked on the license stuff and it's showing it in a browser and he then begins reading the section headings for the license. I tell him "you're in the browser, you need to close it" but he's frustrated and pissed at this point so he begins talking louder over me as he continues to read section headings and then starts to tell me the url. I tell him again "you're in the browser and need to close it" and he finally listens and closes it.

At this point my blood pressure is "high over dangerous". He's back at the window where he can only quit. I ask him "isn't there a box to check to say you've agreed to their license?" and he finally says "oh, yeah" and clicks it and then "I can click install now". I actually expect it to not work but he clicks it and it works.

I cannot get my 10 minutes back.

Imagine that over and over and over and over again for 8 hours.

It doesn't make sense for Comcast to put experienced tech support people on the front lines because dealing with crap like that doesn't require a lot of knowledge. Comcast has a pretty good monitoring system and they know when their stuff isn't working 99% of the time. Most of their calls are probably

Story is BS. Make it Right cards aren't that big.

[IcyWolfy]

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)

The cards they do nothing

[ourlovecanlastforeve]

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.