Question: Do Monopolies Tend Towards Mediocre Customer Service?
Forty five minutes in a Chat Session with Comcast's [stellar?] Customer Service to: add Internet service, and; 2) Move our cable to a new home. Seemed pretty simple to me.
Two dimensions of customer expectations: Dimension One: Outcome? Fine: got it done. Dimension Two: Process? Failing grades. (By the way, did I share my disappointment with the Comcast management? Yes. I'm guessing they already know, but...)
Comcast's monopoly status (is satellite an option? we're going to be too far from AT&T's Central Office for DSL) would have some of us asking how they can get away with service that is just so....poor. Do they have a captive market and, therefore, maintain little responsibility for excellence? Questions. I don't have answers. The quality, or lack thereof, was surprising and my disappointment was not a function of high expectations. But, the state of their incompetence made me wonder, aloud, about a number of factors: training; hiring. Mysteries. My Analyst Flora did her best to sell me on the "Triple Play" even though I had professed my disgust in many ways during the chat.
In contrast, I called the IRS just two days ago and...my adventure was stellar. Not a service provider from whom I'd expect some degree of distinction. Go figure.
With Comcast, I started the chat session by telling the "Analyst" that I wanted to begin Internet service at the new residence. Twenty minutes in, she writes: "I did not see internet in your account." I'd spent 45 minutes in a telephone queue the previous evening without getting anyone to answer nor the technology that informs me how long I'd be on hold. (We installed that at Day Timers in 1989!) And, now, 20 minutes in to a chat conversation about "adding Internet," I'm told I don't have it in my account. Goofy.
I worry that my blog posts, like this one, is merely a bully pulpit from which I can promote my little view, my slice of an experience and that it's not a fair thing to do. That is true, to some extent, but the hammer I swing might just make someone else's experience slightly improved. It's possible, n'est-ce pas?
Forty five minutes in a Chat Session with Comcast's [stellar?] Customer Service to: add Internet service, and; 2) Move our cable to a new home. Seemed pretty simple to me. Two dimensions of customer expectations: Dimension One: Outcome? Fine: got it done. Dimension Two: Process? Failing grades. (By the way, did I share my disappointment with the Comcast management? Yes. I'm guessing they already know, but...)
Comcast's monopoly status (is satellite an option? we're going to be too far from AT&T's Central Office for DSL) would have some of us asking how they can get away with service that is just so....poor. Do they have a captive market and, therefore, maintain little responsibility for excellence? Questions. I don't have answers. The quality, or lack thereof, was surprising and my disappointment was not a function of high expectations. But, the state of their incompetence made me wonder, aloud, about a number of factors: training; hiring. Mysteries. My Analyst Flora did her best to sell me on the "Triple Play" even though I had professed my disgust in many ways during the chat.
In contrast, I called the IRS just two days ago and...my adventure was stellar. Not a service provider from whom I'd expect some degree of distinction. Go figure.
With Comcast, I started the chat session by telling the "Analyst" that I wanted to begin Internet service at the new residence. Twenty minutes in, she writes: "I did not see internet in your account." I'd spent 45 minutes in a telephone queue the previous evening without getting anyone to answer nor the technology that informs me how long I'd be on hold. (We installed that at Day Timers in 1989!) And, now, 20 minutes in to a chat conversation about "adding Internet," I'm told I don't have it in my account. Goofy.
I worry that my blog posts, like this one, is merely a bully pulpit from which I can promote my little view, my slice of an experience and that it's not a fair thing to do. That is true, to some extent, but the hammer I swing might just make someone else's experience slightly improved. It's possible, n'est-ce pas?
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