Comcast Cares? Oh yeah? or the power of social media . . .
by Christine Kling
Okay, here is fair warning. I am going to rant. Not just a little rant either, because if you know me at all, you know that I am a writer/Internet junkie who gets very cranky when I don’t get my wifi. I am going to tell you the story of how I came to don snorkel and fins in my quest for a connection and finally found my Nirvana bandwidth through Twitter.
This sordid tale began when I returned from the Bahamas and docked at Cooley’s Landing, the city marina in downtown Fort Lauderdale. When I raised my wifi booster antenna from Land and Sea wifi, I found a decent signal for the marina’s wifi. But when the antenna connected with the same password from two years ago, I suspected trouble. From that point on, I had a helluva time getting my rig to pull in an IP address, which I reckoned meant that the system had a limited number of addresses and half of downtown Lauderdale now knew the password and was trying to log on to this one slim connection.
I decided that my only recourse was to buy my own Internet connection and since we had bulk cable offered to us through the marina, I called Comcast. That was day 1. When I finally made it through voicemail hell, the gentleman on the other end of the line told me that there was already an activated Internet account at my address at Cooley’s Landing, slip #6. So I did what any cruiser would do, right? The next morning I trundled off to buy a cable modem to see if this was true.
And of course, it was not true.
It turned out that some other boat docked a quarter of a mile downriver and on the other side had recently signed up for Internet with Comcast and for some unknown reason, he had given my slip number in this marina. In fact I remembered receiving a package addressed to him via UPS and I had carried the big box from Comcast up to the office to make sure he got it. Now I think I should have chucked it into the river.
When I called back, the Comcast guy said that he would call the other individual and try to get the address straightened out, but when he finally returned to the line, he said the other guy insisted that his address was correct.
So on day 2 of my efforts, I called Comcast and after waiting forever on hold, I finally reached a different human who, after I repeated the story again, told me that I would need to fax proof that this was my address. So I called the marina office and had the harbor master do this and After hours on the phone and waiting for call backs that never happened, that day, a Friday, ended with the hope it would be straightened out by Monday.
After a frustrating weekend of no Internet, I called on Monday, Day 5, and the fellow I had been dealing with was out for the day and there was no evidence of my fax. I was back to square one with Comcast.
So, I decided to take a more direct route. Boaters are great people, right? We are a community and we support one another. Surely a cruiser would help another cruiser. I walked across the bridge and down the river to find the fellow on the catamaran who claimed he was in my slip. When I knocked on his boat and explained the problem, and all he would need to do is call the Marina Office and ask them to fax his correct address to Comcast, he furrowed his brow and started mumbling about how it wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t his problem. I realized I had run into that rare beast – a selfish cruiser with the “I got mine so screw you” philosophy. I tried to explain to him that I was going to prevail and prove that I was at that address and I was trying to let him know this in advance so that his Internet wouldn’t just get disconnected, but clearly, he didn’t want to listen.
So, after hiking back to my boat, I took my receipt for my month’s rent and drove to the Comcast offices. When I finally made it to the head of the line, the fellow told me the current resident of slip #6 had called Comcast and warned them that some woman was trying to get his Internet cut off. Even though I was showing them proof that I resided there, they would have to investigate his claim first.
On Tuesday, Day 6, the Comcast people told me they had called the catamaran guy and the fellow was belligerent and insisting that he didn’t know what his address was. So, I drove to the downtown marina offices and talked to the Harbormaster who agreed to talk to Comcast and help me fix the address problem for the boater who refused to help. I called Comcast and put them in touch with the office and started the process of getting the other guy’s correct address entered into the Comcast computers for him.
On Wednesday, Day 7, they told me that the other gentleman was adamant that they should not disconnect his Internet and his correct address was still not showing up in the system because no one had ever ordered Internet from there before, so they could not activate me. At this point I said, “Wait, I’ve done nothing wrong, but this other guy who gave the wrong address is not going to suffer at all, while I’ve been struggling with you guys for a week to correct his mistake?” Finally, after nearly 45 minutes on hold, the fellow came back and said my account was activated and he would connect me. Whether that meant he cut off the catamaran or whether they were finally able to change the other guy’s address in the computer, I don’t know. But then, he couldn’t get connected to my modem, so he put in an order for a service technician to come out the next morning. Frustrated and fuming, I grabbed my iPad and opened Twitter. I began to tweet about my woes with Comcast. I found a twitter handle @ComcastCares and I let fly.
@comcastcares If you care so much, why has it been a week that I’ve been trying to get Internet & I still don’t have it?
On Thursday, Day 8, the tech showed up around 10:00 a.m. and after working for an hour, he announced that the new (Comcast brand) modem I had bought was defective, and I would have to return it to the store. I had to laugh because I just didn’t think this could get any worse, but then the tech climbed off my boat and dropped his very fancy high-tech Comcast phone into the river. He was a nice enough young man and he looked so distraught. He asked if I had a net or some way to retrieve it. No net, but I went below, donned my swim suit, put on my fins and mask and snorkel and jumped into the water. After 5 minutes of searching in the dark, silty, zero visibility water and running my hand over the bottom, I found the phone. It was still buzzing, but clearly done for.
So, I rinsed the river water off and drove to the store to return the modem. En route, my phone rang and it was an automated call from Comcast asking me if I would like to complete a survey on the quality of the service call to my home. Boy, I thought, do they have a selection for a tech who can’t fix your problem but tries to see if his company phone can swim? The recording said, “Press 2 if you are willing to complete the survey.” I pressed 2. Then it said, “Press 2 if you are willing to complete the survey.” I pressed 2 again. I went through this five times and then it disconnected me. That was a turning point for me. Comcast was so inept, they couldn’t even get their friggin’ survey to work properly.
I returned to the boat with my new modem, got it all hooked up and started through the self-install process and of course — it didn’t work. Of course, by now I had 1-800-COMCAST on speed dial. It’s hot in Florida in July, but as I sat there on hold, I was fuming. How can this company survive, I asked myself as the recording kept repeating, “Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line.” Then after 32 minutes on hold, they disconnected me.
This time, I picked up the iPad again and after finding my way back into the call queue on hold, I tweeted some more. I was answered by @ComcastWill, who it turns out carries the title Digital Media Outreach and works out of One Comcast Center in Philadelphia. He sent me his email address and I sent him my account number and an iPad photo of the serial# and Mac address on the side of the box. Badaboom – he had me up and running before the local call center ever picked up my call. When I thanked Will and disconnected my phone, I’d been on hold for more than 47 minutes – the second time around.
So what did I learn from this adventure? I learned about the power of Twitter and social media. Sure, as an author I have a louder voice than some people because of my platform, so when I tweet and blog about a company’s incompetence, more people will read it. But companies like Comcast have recognized the power of social media and I think they are listening intently to what is said about them on the web. Fortunately, Comcast has put some very bright and competent people in charge of managing their virtual presence. Unfortunately, until they get the troops on the ground better trained and more able to troubleshoot beyond the scripts they’ve learned, the best bet for customer service all of us today is online through Twitter. The moral of the story is if you are not on Twitter, you might consider joining up so the next time you need to fight a corporate giant, you won’t lose all the hours of valuable time that I lost this past week.
Fair winds!
Christine
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