Todd Hollander Market Research

After standing me up twice (see “Comcast drops the ball again“), Comcast finally sent a technician Friday evening to repair my cable television service. The whole ordeal, while enormously frustrating, has also been educational. Here is what I learned…

1. Comcast is making an effort to become a customer-centric company

You may wonder how I can make such a statement given my experience, but here’s the thing: I found no lack of Comcast employees who were embarassed, apologetic, and willing to intervene. In fact, I received repeated calls from personnel in the Comcast corporate office and the local executive office, several of whom offered their direct phone numbers and even their mobile numbers. One even posted an apology on this blog.

So the problem was not a lack of concern but a lack of power. On two occasions a concerned Comcast employee was unable to circumvent the bottleneck of someone considerably lower in the pecking order: the dispatchers and service technicians.

This suggests that:

2. The shift to customer-centricity is occurring from the top down

In other words, Senior Management is driving the change down through the organization. This is a good thing, because without the buy-in of senior executives, meaningful change in the corporate culture is virtually impossible (see “How to develop a customer-centric business model“).

Unfortunately:

3. It is not a concerted effort

It appears that the cultural change has not yet flowed to the bottom of the corporate pyramid. The vibe I got from the technicians I met felt similar to the one given off by the folks who work at the post office: high job security with little or no incentive for doing more than the least that is expected. If I’m right, and the most customer-facing employees are the most averse to change, this may to be a tough nut to crack.

The bottom line: I sense that Comcast is making significant changes but there is much work yet to be done.

My satisfaction with Comcast digital cable was extremely short-lived. After a maddening ordeal trying to order the service (see “Ordering from Comcast - Like a visit to the proctologist“), I was finally able to get the service installed (see “Comcast corrects problem“). Unfortunately, the cable box they installed stopped working the very next day.

So I called Comcast and scheduled a service call. When the repairman neither showed up nor called on the scheduled day, I called Comcast again. They told me someone at the company had canceled the service call without noting any reason or explanation. The Customer Service agent was very apologetic and took ownership of the problem. She even called me back the next morning to say that she had rescheduled the service call for Friday between 11:00 and 2:00 and that she would personally monitor the ticket to ensure that it was completed.

Well, it’s now after 2:00 on Friday and you can probably guess the rest of the story. Yup - no repairman; no phone call. So I called Comcast. Guess what they said? “Looks like someone at our company canceled the appointment, but they didn’t log a reason for the cancellation.” Second time in a week I’ve been stood up by Comcast. The Customer Service rep let me hold while he typed a letter to the dispatcher requesting an explanation for the cancellation. He said someone would call me this afternoon.

The saga continues…