Yesterday we noted that Comcast and Amazon have struck a new partnership that involves the cable giant selling its broadband, TV and voice services via the Amazon website. According to the full Comcast announcement, customers who buy service via Amazon will be served by a "dedicated team of highly trained Comcast customer service agents who are based in Comcast’s new, state-of-the-art call centers in Spokane, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona."
Comcast proceeds to note that "these agents have been specifically trained to handle all customer service interactions from sales and billing to installation and follow-up."
The problem? Comcast's reputation as providing arguably the worst customer service of any company in America continues to dog the Philadelphia-based cable giant.
Amazon has allowed users to file reviews for Comcast's various services, and the results aren't pretty. 88% of reviews for Comcast's 10 Mbps service are negative.
"If I could give it zero stars I would," complains one reviewer.
"Overpriced garbage monopoly in my area that needs to have competition," states another.
"I haven't been so confused by a partnership since Julia Roberts married Lyle Lovett, says yet another annoyed customer. "Amazon is one of the best companies there is in customer service and Comcast is consistently rated as among the very worst. I think Amazon will come to regret this association as much as Comcast customers regret having to deal with them."
Rather unsurprisingly, most of the reviews focus on Comcast's continued expansion of usage caps and overage fees even the company's own documents have shown to be completely unnecessary. Several of the reviewers complain the new Amazon store fails completely to inform customers that Comcast's caps even exist, and are quickly expanding into a more and more Comcast markets.
"If you watch Netflix, Amazon Video, Youtube or you do any online gaming, downloading, cloud backups, you will smash through your allotted 300GB pretty quickly and start getting reamed for an additional $10 per 50GB," complains Amazon reviewer A. Sandy. "I usually smash through my 300GB cap by day 10 of the month. My recommendation is if there is ANY OTHER company to get the internet that you need, go with them instead of Comcast."
So while Comcast may continue to insist it's making great strides in shoring up negative public perception and its historically abysmal customer service, those improvements have yet to materialize in any customer service studies or the court of public opinion. And until Comcast is willing to acknowledge that its high prices and relentless pursuit of usage caps are a huge reason for this public disdain, it's unlikely things will improve anytime soon.