191–200 of 356 posts
I feel like taking a shower after listening to this call. Is this what it's like most of the time in the US when dealing with service representatives?
Yes.
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Even if that's true, Comcast's bad metrics aren't our responsibility.
The point is that this tactic would be selecting against the nice reps in the long run. Of course, I can't think of any other tactic that wouldn't do so.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The guy who he was talking to works for Comcast, is pursuing Comcast goals (which aggressively punishes agents who don't have high enough retention rates), and is recorded and often monitored by Comcast. The Comcast agent clearly has a list of complaints/responses that they use to try to defuse all complaints -- not that they've actually solved your problem, but rather that they made you think the call was no longer…
I was able to cancel my account with comcast, just two weeks ago, in under twenty minutes. Are you saying that if he had hung up, and called again, he would have faced an equally long phone call? My point is that he did not have to put up with this. Obviously there are going to be some bad apples amongst the thousands of comcast customer service employees. He could have hung up on this guy, called back, and gotten a…
- the entire hourly-equivalent salary of a new high school teacher (average, US) or
- enough to pay for my entire Starbucks consumption for over a week or
- enough to pay for almost two of my family's "luxuries" (netflix and one other service) or
- enough to pay for the entire quantity of gas I use every month or
- almost certainly double (or more) of the Comcast Rep's wage
This isn't meant to brag but to put in perspective what twenty minutes is worth via a common valuation (money). The lower the socioeconomic class, the more twenty minutes is actually worth, because they tend to have to work more hours to make ends meet, and thus their free time, unit for unit, ought to be valued more highly than mine.
I've had lots of trouble with ISPs before. About a decade ago Bulldog Broadband were the first to offer 8Mb service in London, and at a reasonable price, and they oversold so massively their staff couldn't cope. After a month of no service I called to cancel, and after 45 minutes on hold I gave up. I tried again. And again. Eventually I got through to someone who processed the cancellation. I got an email saying "To…
Here in the Netherlands the situation got significantly better after a famous comedian (Youp van 't Hek) went completely public with the misery that ensued after calling t-mobile to get a problem fixed with his sons iPhone. ( http://www.nrcnext.nl/blog/2010/10/25/youp-vant-hek-brengt-t... ) T-mobile found themselves suddenly completely on the defensive in various TV-shows. They apologized profusely. It was very funny…
Better yet, somebody should write a bot using voice recognition, TTS, and a state-machine, and have it call and mess with these people.
There is a new law here in Brazil since last week [1]: a customer has the right to cancel any subscription of phone, cable TV or internet contracts without talking to a representative, by automatic system. Just press some keys on the phone or fill a form in the company's website and it's done, with confirmation code and fully cancelled in two business days. If the customer really wants to talk to a representative to…
We're an entrepreneurial community and here is a case of demand. Why not meet the demand to cut off internet services? One idea: create a phone service where I call a third-party (you, the entrepreneur) that connects me to the best number to cancel my service. The third party determines if recording the call is legal and records if so, posting the recording online, along with metadata: date, duration, agent name, loc…
How would that result in this endeavor making money?
In any case, this is not actually a problem that is difficult to solve. Yes, a phone call like that is utterly infuriating, but you can still cancel your service at the end of it.
Maybe people would pay money to avoid dealing with that. Maybe. But you do it, what, once a year at most?
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Nice idea, so long as you're in the US where you don't really have an 'official' location... I tried to do this once in Berlin to cancel a gym membership outside of the contractual limits. They required showing an official 'de-registration' from the city of Berlin. I was moving within the city at the time, so instead of telling the city I was moving, I instead told the city I was leaving and then a few weeks later re…
Why is a gym allowed to demand such documentation in the first place?
We're an entrepreneurial community and here is a case of demand. Why not meet the demand to cut off internet services? One idea: create a phone service where I call a third-party (you, the entrepreneur) that connects me to the best number to cancel my service. The third party determines if recording the call is legal and records if so, posting the recording online, along with metadata: date, duration, agent name, loc…
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