Being Great at the Wrong Thing

Posted February 26th, 2011 by tstarback

Comcast Cable

My family recently started having trouble with our Comcast HD channels.
No, this is not a Comcast rant per se, it just helps illustrate my point.

  • What is interesting now that I think about it, is we got the level of service we were warned about, and prepared for but choose them anyway (probably another post later about knowingly choosing a company with such a bad reputation and how that affects your interactions and expectations hmm...)

First Call

The technician said they would run a remote test to find and fix the issue. This test takes 30 minutes, and I was instructed to call back if there were still problems.
I guess I'm old fashion, but I think they should call me back since it is THEIR problem AND a perfect opportunity to engage me with a winning follow up, or more corrective action.

A Few Days Later

We notice, there was still a problem. Call back on a Saturday. Surprisingly they said they would have someone at my house the next day on Sunday. Really, on a Sunday?? I was regaining my confidence in them.

Sunday

I hang around the house from 12-5pm waiting. No call, no show. Again I was't really surprised.

A Week Later

Now I'm starting to get annoyed and missing my favorite shows. On the bright side, a whole week of downtime gave us the opportunity to try other options and we discovered that we can easily live without Comcast. An HD antenna, subscription to Hulu+ (we already had Netflix), now we had better TV AND were saving $80 a month. Time to close the account.

Closing the Account

To officially close my account I had to turn in my digital decoder card at their local office, which I did on Tuesday afternoon. We received our final settlement on Friday. Assuming at least one day in the mail, they got that final statement in the mail the very next day. Frankly, for such a seemingly dysfunctional company, I find that absolutely amazing and downright impressive!

Comcast has decided to be the best at closing accounts. Does that make sense?

Is your company great at the wrong thing?