Background Noise

Dear Comcast, I Know You're Reading This...

I was up kinda late last night, catching up on emails and blogs and such, and I happen to catch a series of Twitter messages from Michael Arrington's TechCrunch account about Comcast. It seems that he was in the midst of a 36-hour network outage, and had less than a warm fuzzy experience with them on the phone.

I can relate - I was a long-time Comcast customer, and would probably still be one had they not jacked up the installation when I moved last year. But I digress....that's for another post.

Another Twitter message from the TechCrunch account...

"update: Got a call from Comcast HQ, and they sent a team out and fixed the problem. They say they monitor twitter and saw my complaint..."

This is where it gets interesting: Michael updated the TechCrunch blog with more details on his experience with Comcast, and their reaction to his Twitter messages. OK...I get it. Arrington was using Twitter as a bit of a bully pulpit, vowed to spend a lot of time and energy trashing Comcast over the next few weeks. They picked up on it, had an "oh shit!" moment and then scrambled a Comcast SWAT team to fix his problem. Some of the comments on the TechCruch post were saying the same thing, and Michael responded that he didn't feel that he got preferential treatment by being an A-List Internet guy with a lot of reach.

I kinda wanted to call BS on this, but instead of posting comments on the TechCrunch post I thought I would use Twitter instead. After all, if Comcast is really scanning Twitter then maybe this would pop-up on their radar. A few minutes after my reply to Michael, I get a message on Twitter from Carter F. Smith, with further examples of Comcast taking action after monitoring blogs and Twitter messages.

Not more than 10 minutes after my initial tweet, and subsequent dialog with another Twitter user on the subject, I received a message on Twitter from a Comcast employee. Yes, they are indeed monitoring Twitter for customer service issues. And yes, they would have taken the same action were it me bitching about them on Twitter and not Michael Arrington. He even went so far as to give me a personal email address to use if I ever did have a problem (not knowing that I wasn't a current customer). To bring this full circle, Michael picked up on my Twitter message and posted it as a comment on TechCrunch as further proof that Comcast wasn't playing favorites.

Well...there you have it. I find this pretty remarkable customer service based on my previous history with Comcast. When I was a customer, we had what I would politely call a "stormy relationship". The only reason that I remained a Comcast customer as long as I did, was because I used to live in a DSL black hole with AT&T and I had no other option for broadband.

Bravo, Comcast. And if some in HQ reads this, you need to find the person that came up with this idea, and promote them. Seriously.

Now if I could just figure out how to convince them to get their buddies at DirecTV to do the same thing, maybe I could get this stupid message off my TV!

Adventures in Customer Service

It's probably no secret to those that know me that I have a very low tolerance for poor customer service. I've spent quite a bit of time managing the business end of call centers, and I had the wonderful opportunity of watching a customer service organization grow from one person to over 100 under my watch. I certainly understand the challenges that come with the territory, especially in a large organization, but I also have a pretty good understanding of the technology and tools available to help mitigate those challenges.

By and large, many large companies treat customer service as a necessary evil instead of looking at it as another channel by which they can engage and interact with their best customers. I was reminded of this in vivid Technicolor this week when I had to contact DirecTV to help resolve an issue I was having with their OnDemand service.

I try to do as much as I can on their web site, which is actually very useful as a subscriber (disclaimer: their site is powered by the company that I work for, ATG), but there are limitations to what you can accomplish on the site. I can't remember the last time I had to call them for anything, but that's what this was going to take, as their OnDemand service is still in what they call "beta".

Just to provide a little background: I have been a DirecTV customer since 1995. I was actually working at RCA when the whole DBS hardware and services went into production, and was part of the original test group. I've probably spent enough on DirecTV services over the past 12-years to pay for a year of college for one of my kids. They seem to recognize this on their web site, but in the contact center? Not so much...

Here's how my call went:

Me: Pick up the phone and dial 800-DIRECTV
DTV Auto-attendant: Please help us verify your account...
Me: Fabulous...love to! Anything to help make my experience go smoothly
DTV auto-attendant: Please tell me what you want to do
Me: I have a message on my screen when I try to watch a OnDemand movie
DTV auto-attendant: I have no idea what you're talking about, so I'm going to just guess instead of passing you to a real person! Do you want to pay your bill with a credit card or by a check?
Me: WTF? ok...repeating slowly this time: I have a message on my screen when I try to watch a OnDemand movie
DTV auto-attendant: I still have no idea what you're talking about, so I'm going to guess again! Please tune to the channel where you have no picture...did that fix the problem?
Me: Slightly louder and slower...I WANT TO TALK TO AN AGENT
DTV auto-attendant: Transferring you to an agent

YES!

A pleasant, yet robotic female voice greets me with an odd English accent. Seems that we just left the good old U.S. of A.!

DTV Agent #1: Thank you for calling DirecTV. May I please have your phone number?
Me: Didn't my phone number pop-up on your screen when you took my call?
DTV Agent #1: Yes, but I need you to verify your number for security purposes.
Me: What? Why in the f....oh, nevermind. I give her my number.
DTV Agent #1: Can you give me the name on the account?
Me: Don't you have that in front of you too?
DTV Agent #1: Yes, but again we need to verify...
Me: <sigh>I slowly realize that I cannot win this battle
DTV Agent #1: And who am I speaking with?
Me: <Is this is a trick question?> K-E-N-T
DTV Agent #1: OK, now what can I help you with today?
Me: Explains the problem...
DTV Agent #1: OK...I can't help you with that, so I will have to transfer you to Tier 2 support.

At this point, it's obvious to me that Tier 1 support for DirecTV is offshore, and they can only handle basic account-type calls. That doesn't really bother me...too much. I just want that damn message on my screen to go away so that I can watch the movie that I just paid for. A few beeps and held breaths later, I finally hear the sweet, sweet hold music/programmed commercial of my next queue.

After a short 5-minute wait, I get another human. This time, it appears to be a not-so-pleasant sounding man.

DTV Agent #2: Thank you for calling DirecTV. May I please have your phone number?
Me: Yeah, look..I just got transfered from Tier 1 so I have to think that all that info came over with the transfer, right?
DTV Agent #2: No sir, I need to look up your account information.
Me: ...W
DTV Agent #2: Can you give me the name on the account?
Me: ...T
DTV Agent #2: And who am I speaking with?
Me: ...F??
DTV Agent #2: OK, now what can I help you with today?
Me: Explains the problem...
DTV Agent #2: I need to put you on hold for about 10 minutes while I pretend to look something up. You'll hear some clicks and noises that might make you think you are going to be disconnected, but I'll eventually come back. Unless you get disconnected.

Five minutes later...

DTV Agent #2: OK, I don't have any information on OnDemand because it's so new. So, I will have to transfer you to technical support.

More clicks and beeps and I'm into yet another queue...this time I have a very pleasant-sounding young lady.

DTV Agent #2: Thank you for calling DirecTV. May I please have your phone number?
DTV Agent #2: I'm so sorry..Can you give me the name on the account?
DTV Agent #2: I'm so sorry..And who am I speaking with?
DTV Agent #2: I'm so sorry..what can I help you with today?

OK...this has gone on long enough, and I think you get the point. The last agent apologized about 50 times, but never really helped me with anything. She said someone would call me back to help try and fix it, yet 3 days later I still haven't received a call.

The moral of the story, is that a company with a customer base the size of DirecTV should really be taking customer service a little more seriously. I didn't mind getting sent to India on the initial call; that is a reality that most customers are going to have to deal with, and it probably was the least offensive experience in the whole call. My beef is that at the end of the day nobody cared about or took ownership of my problem, and they clearly don't care about the customer experience when someone calls.

One could probably view this as being a symptom of a company that is more interested in acquiring new customers than retaining the customers they already have. That's not a company I would invest in, and that's exactly what we're doing as paying customers. For now...