There's been a lot of talk about @comcastcares and I've heard the case used as an example of the power of the social web, the power of Twitter for customer service, etc. for probably close to a year now but I've remained skeptical that this type of heroics was really a way to become a social business. Heroics are, well, heroic but are they really a scaleable approach to solving a serious business problem? The transformation to become a social business is a basic culture change that needs a lot of management support and a serious change management effort to reach all of the employees and create fundamental difference. That's the core roadblock to this transformation and is something that cannot be bypassed.
Comcast has an abysmal reputation for customer service and that doesn't change overnight. First you need a commitment to change, something I just don't see when I look at Comcast. This story of course has a personal example to support my theory and even though I'm not particularly happy about this example its not just sour grapes, there is a real lesson here.
OK, the story:
I moved into a new apartment last month (9/17). It's pre-wired for network with a junction box in my room. We had the choice of Comcast or AT&T for Internet service provider but chose Comcast because of the Extreme 50 offering (50 mbps download). I often work from a home office so the speed is important (I often get demos from software companies, download large files, etc.).
Here's the sequence of events:
1. soon after we moved in the tech came out to install the modem / set up (very fast response btw). I came home during the install. The tech set up the modem in my room but not in the patch panel (no problem I could move it, afterall I've worked in tech for, ah, well, a long time). The install went ok, but I didn't run a speed test. After he left I moved the modem to the patch panel and installed my Lynksys router / wireless access point. I patched in the wired network so there are 4 ports available. I use a wired connection in my office set up. A couple of days later I noticed that the network was very slow so ran a speed test and could only get up to maybe 2 mbps for download. I used a local test recommended by my roommates boyfriend who is a senior network engineer (he also checked the set up, tweaked it some but basically everything was correct).
2. My roommate called and reported the problem and they scheduled another tech to come out when I would be there. He brought a new modem and rechecked all the set up. We ran the speed test and could only get around 11 mbps for download. He checked all the way to the building junction box but could do nothing to fix it. He said someone could call to schedule a more senior person to follow up.
3. No one called and finally my roommate called and complained. They told her they would credit us $20 and that a person would call to set up an appointment.
4. Appointment set but unfortunately I was away on a business trip. The tech came out and was extremely rude to my roommate. He checked the set up and used a "special" site to test that did show 50 mbps at the modem (that is the only time we've seen a test work to that speed, by the way, interesting). She ran the test at one of the wired ports and it wouldn't get above 22-23 mbps. He told her that it was because of the wiring, it attenuated the signal by 50% (technically, horribly inaccurate and frankly ridiculous, that maybe 20-25' of cable could attenuate the signal by +50% in a new building). He also told her she didn't need 50 mbps so why was she complaining anyway (he didn't say you're just a dumb girl, but he implied it and in general was very insulting to her).
5. I got home, ran the speed tests from several sites and nothing gets above 25 mbps. Mostly it runs around 11 mbps. My roommates network engineer boyfriend come and check everything and it is correctly configured and set up. He believes that either there is a problem in the Comcast operations center or that Comcast knowingly throttles bandwidth. We've reported it but no one responds. We have been billed for the full price of the extreme service but we're not getting that service. No $20 credit was even issued.
6. I tweeted my displeasure with Comcast and one of the Comcastcares agents picked it up and did respond very quickly. She asked me to email the details and them promised that someone would call us on Monday...it's a Monday later, no call.
Here's a screenshot of a speedtest run on our network:
Oh, and the fine print, which I didn't notice before, hidden in a link on the offer and on another page: "Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed. Speeds shown represent proportional download times and are not actual speeds. Speed comparison between Comcast 12 Mbps, 16 Mbps, 22 Mbps and 50 Mbps service and standard 1.5 and 3.0 DSL (downloads only). PowerBoost provides bursts of download and upload speeds for the first 10 MB and 5 MB of a file, respectively, for 12 Mbps service and for the first 20 MB and 10 MB of a file, respectively, for 16 Mbps and 22 Mbps service. Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed"
What Frank and his team are trying to do is admirable, don't get me wrong. But as you can see the culture has not changed and there's no reason to think it will without management commitment and a real attempt to get the technician in the field to understand what is acceptable behavior and what is expected from a customer service perspective. The social business transformation is about culture change. I also wonder what would happen to the Comcastcares team if 50M customers started interacting with Comcast on Twitter tomorrow...scale is a real problem without an enterprise support tool behind the process. Also, charging almost twice as much for a premium service that you can't deliver (and maybe never had any intention to deliver?) is simply wrong.
****UPDATE 11/3/2009
Comcast, specifically Frank Eliason (@comcastcares) and some of his team, Steve and Bill, contacted me this morning and over the past hour or so have corrected my problem. I also got a call from Comcast Corp. apologizing, promising to look into the issues and offsetting some of the charges. I'm happily speeding along with much improved performance.
I'll rephrase some of what I said above. I do now believe that Comcast is trying to change it's corporate culture to one of good, responsive customer service. I also know how difficult that is to do. Change like this takes time and lot's of missteps and hard work to really see the changes throughout a very large organization. My experience is a perfect example of just how much work they have left. If they can continue to push this type of responsiveness and real focus on customers over time, it will make a huge difference. Bravo for the effort today!
