Comcast 'Deeply Disapointed' in Their Awful Customer Service → Such wonderful customer service

I have come to the conclusion that the Reading PA Comcast office is staffed by a bunch of idiots.

For some time I had a couple of those little digital adapters, those $1.98 a month things.. Decided it was time to change the one out I was using for a regular digital box, so yesterday I take the two adapters in to return and pick up a digital box. The transaction seemed to go OK - until I got home.

On top of the $10 fee they want just to add the box, I need to call in to a 1-855 number to activate the box (what happened to the days when you picked up a box and just plugged it in, it was already activated)... anyway call the number and a few voice prompts it asks for the last 4 of the serial number.. Did that, it came back "sorry I didn't hear you", so I repeat the serial number.. After 4 times doing this I get transfered to a live person.

That person said it wasn't working because the box is not on the account. ?? While she was researching she asked for the complete box number, so I pull out the receipts I got to get the serial number when I saw it.. I had a receipt for the box that was issued, and a second receipt for the two I returned, on that receipt one of the serial numbers was that of the box I was just issued. The person at the office issued then returned the same box.

So it's back to the office to get this straightened out, as I was not going to be charged for a box I returned but wasn't entered as returned. The person who I saw the first time wasn't working the counter when I went back.. Explained what happened and showed proof - of course they didn't believe that I returned the other box, so had to get a supervisor to give approval for the person to look through the returned boxes, only took a couple minutes to find. So they fix everything, two returned adapters and one issued digital box, all is good..

Until I get home.. Call the 1-855 # to register the box, this time they can register it, but after they send the refresh to the box I never get a picture. The person on the phone says it can take 20-30 minutes to activate.

One hour later still no picture.. Call into the main Comcast line.. The rep/tech I get tries all sorts of things but no go, they declare the box to be dead. So I have three choices, get another one from the office (which is closed), wait 3 days for a tech to come out, or wait for a new box be mailed.

Next day (today).. Go back down to the office, get a new box. After I get home I go to activate it, I call the 1-855 number the clerk at the office wrote down.. ring.. ring.. "Thank you for calling Met Life..".. THE IDIOT AT THE OFFICE GAVE ME THE WRONG PHONE NUMBER.. Really?? Found the correct number online and called..

This time the new box was there, but the activation failed again.. the box would not authorize.. the activation rep couldn't figure it out and wanted to put me on hold for a sec. Instead of hold they hung up on me. THIS time I called the trouble line, hoping maybe I'll get someone smart.. I did.. This person saw the box was added to the account, but none of the billing codes were put on the box. After a few minutes the tech sent out a hit, the box reset, and the picture appeared.

What a mess. It seems like the people at the Reading PA office do not know how to properly add equipment to an account, hell they can't even give out the correct phone numbers. Now I have to wait for that $10 install fee to hit the bill, once it does you can be sure I am calling to have that removed, hell they should be paying me for all the hassle they put me through just to add one simple cable box!

I should have known it was going to be a hassle, the last time I added service, about 1.5yrs ago added Digital Voice, it took them about 5 weeks to figure out how to get the phone number ported over from the old telco..

I wonder if this is typical of what people go through at the "retail" side. Up until 2008 I worked for Comcast, and I don't ever remember it being this much of a hassle to add/remove or change services.. but then I worked in the field, things were done differently (more streamlined) then.. *shrug*

I really wished this is an isolated story. When I was a customer of one of the cable companies, I also was afraid to go to the office and pick up any of equipment myself.

You see this sort of thing time and again with Corporations. It seems that many of the people in such positions, want to get away doing the absolute minimum to help any customer, when it should be the exact opposite in making your customers happy. You see this in every industry and corporation to some degree. The difference is the quality of the people they hire vs. the money they are willing to spend for quality help.

No corporations or businesses are happy simply "doing good" and riding a margin. Instead they have to measure everything by growth factors and record profits, or these corporate big wigs aren't happy simply running a company that turns a regular profit. Thinking like this is pretty much will ultimately doom the capitalist system, as there has to be a breaking point for consumers in the end. This simply isn't sustainable in the long term, and something will eventually have to give. But until the apathy factor of consumers dwindles, I suspect little change will happen.

Personally, I'd give my last call to Comcast's Business Class support an F rating. All they had to do was get a shitty SMC gateway off my account, and a Motorola 6120 provisioned. Something that should have been taken care of with a phone call. But the local guy that was the result of the call, was FAR more helpful than that CSR. And even went as far as to call them lazy.

I really feel for those in Comcast, like the engineers and admins (a few of which help us on this site) who work their hardest to help their customers, yet have to deal with the crap reputation their company has earned because of the shitty customer service. These admins and engineers deserve better at the lower support level, as do the paying customers. Jason and company (CC Direct administrators), THANK YOU FOR YOUR HARD WORK!