Home Social Business Comcast is Solving Customer Problems but Are They Changing Their Business Model?
Comcast is Solving Customer Problems but Are They Changing Their Business Model?
September 28, 2011 1 Comment

Comcast is Solving Customer Problems but Are They Changing Their Business Model?

I am a Comcast customer. I actually love Comcast. I have their high speed internet service, cable and an HD box to compliment my wicked Sony TV.  I am a huge fan of On Demand and their programming is second to none.  I’ve called customer support a few times over the last 8 years and honestly … sometimes the issue was my fault, not theirs.

A few years ago, Frank Eliason did something awesome.  He started monitoring Twitter for Comcast mentions and he quickly realized that there was an opportunity for him to solve customer problems. And he did just that. A quick scan of the ComcastCares proves that this channel has been effective for Comcast as a customer support channel.  To this day, I still see case studies, white papers, blog posts and even examples in books of Comcast and their effort to engage with the social customer. Bill Gerth, who is now the face of Comcast Cares is carrying on the legacy day in and day out – hats off to Comcast, Bill and the entire support team for this amazing effort. It’s not easy.

But here is the problem. And, I am not picking on Comcast but this is a lesson for all business.  Look what I found when I searched for Comcast in Twitter.

Of course, if you searched for any brand or product in Twitter you would undoubtedly get similar results. Customers on Twitter are not afraid to speak their minds; and often times they do it a little too much which is certainly irritating at times.

I am confident that Bill and the Comcast team addressed each and every one of the issues highlighted above. They are doing what a good “social brand” should be doing … listening to the customer and solving problems. But there is deeper issue here.  The Comcast Guarantee states that “We will always be on time within your appointment window or we’ll credit you $20 or give you a free premium channel for three months.”Judging from the above, Comcast is having a hard time living up to their own guarantee and I have to ask why?

Because I am customer and “pulling” for Comcast since they were one of the early pioneers of customer support via Twitter, I am going to assume that they have already hired some consultant or six sigma brain wizard from Stanford who is looking to eliminate waste internally. If they really want to address these customer support issues, they need to tackle the “root cause” of the problem. If a technician can’t make the 3 hour appointment window, they need to understand why and fix the process.

This is one attribute of a social business -  which is gathering the collective feedback from the community and changing a business models or process, if it makes sense of course. In this case though I think it does.

Related Posts

Filed Under: Social Business, Social Customer, Social Media Tagged: ,
About Michael Brito

Michael Brito is a Senior Vice President of Social Business Planning at Edelman Digital. He helps his clients transform their organizations to be more open, collaborative and socially proficient; with the end result of creating shared value with employees, partners and customers. Prior to Edelman, Michael worked for Intel and Hewlett Packard in various social media marketing roles. Opinions posted here are his own.

Feel free to follow him on Twitter, subscribe to this blog or read some more of his content on Social Business News.

  • Anonymous

    I had problems with my Comcast line once. They couldn’t fix it via a phone call so said someone would come to my apartment the next day. They gave me a 4 hour period (9 – 1, I think) when someone was supposed to arrive. I stayed home so I could be there, but they didn’t show up. My car at the shop was ready, and I wanted to get it, but didn’t want to miss the repairman. I called after the time period was up and got an automated message giving me the same time period (which was in the past). I called back about an hour later, and the message had changed, saying they would arrive sometime in a 12 hour time period. I managed to talk to a human, who seemed confused by the 12 hour time period. He said he’d try to find out what was happening and call me right back. He never called back. Near the end of the day I called again and talked to a person who also couldn’t help but said they could send someone the next day. I think both of these people mentioned the $20 I could get back because the repairman was late. I left just in time to pick up my car before the shop closed. When I got back, my neighbor told me Comcast had knocked on my door. They hadn’t left a note or anything. The next day a repairman showed up and had to replace my outside line. I didn’t call to ask for the $20 credit because I was sick of calling them. A couple of weeks later, I was surprised to find out I had been charged for the service, even though it was the outside wiring. I contacted Comcast customer support online (chat) and asked them to reverse the charges and for the $20 credit. They said they would look into it and get back to me. After a week they still had not gotten back to me. So I contacted them through chat again and told them the story again. They assured me they would take care of everything. The next month I did get a credit on my bill for the service charge, but I never got the $20, even though the repairman was several hours late. I guess the moral is that they can guarantee anything, but it may take so much effort to get them to follow through that it isn’t worth it. I happened to be unemployed at the time, but if I hadn’t, I would have missed 2 days of work! I have to say that my other experiences with Comcast support have all been reasonable, although I did have to miss some work in order to be at home for them.