because if he called it a monte cristo cigar it would lessen the cigar brand.

Whats there to learn? He paid for it and still tipped 30% on it too.

That's why I posed the question. It is naive to consider customer satisfaction (no matter how reasonable the customer) the sole mission of customer support in certain cases/markets (or non-markets). He straightened me out.

I wish I could find my BBB complaint I filed, but the arizona BBB link is down, so... to trying to go from memory.

Air Conditioning Unit breaks.. In July.. In Arizona. Chas Roberts Air Conditioning comes out on a Friday. Guy checks it out. Finds problem, says he needs to get a part ordered. Its Friday afternoon, but he can get it ordered Monday, should be here by mid-next week, should be installed by next Friday at the absolute latest. Kind of sucky, since its over 100 every day here right now, but not much I can do.

I call on Monday to make sure it got ordered, no call back. Wednesday call again. No call back. Friday, I finally get through to a guy. He has no idea what I am talking about and it is painfully apparent that they haven't even ordered the part yet. I mention that its FRICKING JULY IN ARIZONA, and can he at least order it today get it by Tuesday and get it installed immediately.

He can order it, but it won't be in for at least two to three weeks. And there is a backlog of installs, so he won't be able to install it until three weeks minimum. When I explain to him that this is directly contrary to what the guy who came out said, his response was "Well, he didn't have the authority to tell you that." That's it. No apology. No attempt to rush things through for me. Nothing.

I explain to him that I can't really go a month with no AC in the middle of the damn summer in Arizona, he doesn't seem to care. I explain to him that this was not the service offered to me, and I'd like some kind of compensation to make up for it, whether it be a discount, or some kind of loaner system, nope. Its not his fault his guy gave me the wrong information. (he actually said this to me)

Well, then I'd like to go somewhere else for my business, and would like a refund (I had already paid on credit card). He'd refund the price of the part, but his guy still went out there, so he was not going to refund me the original labor cost. (Note, the way this works was I had to pay $X for the service guy to come out, but that amount was refunded in labor cost for the installation of any repairs. ) I inform him that I only paid for the service guy based on them actually being able to fix my Air conditioner, which they didn't.

Well, he can, in three weeks, so no refund.

I filed a complaint with the BBB saying they misled me about the delivery dates. They called me back immediately saying they canceled the order for the part, and they were sending me back a check for the total refunded amount... in three weeks. Apparently everything takes three weeks. Oh and that they 'didn't want my business anymore.'

No ****, Sherlock. I'm pretty sure by the way you acted you never really wanted my business.

I had fun keeping the BBB complaint open for months after they refunded the check complaining about lack of compensation for all the time and effort they put me through, not to mention the extended time I had to go with no AC.

Hate Chas Roberts.

Meanwhile, I called up my brother-in-law, bought a new A/C at cost from his store, and had some guy install it for $50 and a six pack of beer the next day.

Ray

Man, I apparently run super good at Comcasting. I've had nothing but good experiences with them. (I know this is super atypical).

IHOFW >>>> IHOP

yeah i had nothing but endless problems with comcast so i switched to verizon when i moved apartments this year. they are as ******ed if not more ******ed than comcast. the thing with these two is that you're basically rolling the dice with every phone call and service appointment until you finally get someone who knows what they're doing. once you get lucky a good tech will come in and fix the issue in 30 minutes where the last 4 ****** techs failed in a combined 20 hours.


i just dont understand how a competent competitor doesn't take over this market.

it's not exactly an easy market to get into...

It's not atypical, it's atypical that you HEAR it, but it's not atypical, I'm sure most people are at least indifferent, if not happy with their service.

I've had a couple problems with comcast service at my old apartment, but since we got our house, no issues really, but at that apartment, the service woudl have been terrible no matter who was supplying it.

Cable companies are an easy target for angry customers(full disclosure: work in the internet dept for a cable company). Comcast certainly has their faults (throttling, transfer limiting, cost) but all you really hear about, like anything else, is the complaints.

That being said, I wish I lived in the service area for the company i work for, we have about a 6 hour avg turnaround time on service calls and 2 day on installation, cheaper service (not that that would matter for me) and more options (different packages).

This post got stupid longer then about any post I've ever made.

No. Can you imagine how many calls they probably get a day asking how much something costs, without the customer ever coming in? Probably like 97% of these phone calls are just feeler calls.

It's totally standard to follow this up with "...and you have them in stock right now?...OK I'll be there in 30 minutes."

If you ask how much something costs, they'll tell you how much it costs (when they have it).

Are you kidding? There is no way in hell most people are indifferent or happy with Comcast service. It is like the worst service-provider since AOL circa 1996.

Comcast is straight up an unethical company and they bank on the fact that people would rather be overbilled than spend 2 hours on the phone during dinner disputing their circular logic. Comcast is an absolutely terrible company. There is no denying that. Perhaps there are regional differences...maybe some markets are better than others but most are absolutely abysmal.

Squeaky wheel; grease, etc.

Comcast is fine here.

Over the years I've had run-ins with various customer service reps. Sometimes I've lost my cool and the rep and I brought the worst out of each other. But I've never had a guy unload on me before I'd said a word in a loud and obnoxious manner. And then I interrupt him, to ask him to listen to my complaint, you know the reason we were on the phone, and he immediately puts me on hold. It was surreal. It was like a Monty Python sketch or what I imagine "punked" to be.

At least he was straight with you. It's pretty much impossible to get a non canned answer from anyone.

I think it sucks balls that they don't have HD channels for NHL Center Ice but otherwise it's been positive with comcast. All the installation guys I've had (I moved every year for 5 years in a row) were all great. One guy even came after his shift was over to put the cable in because there was a problem when he tried the first time (something about running it across the street with traffic). Calling to add or remove packages and channels has been no problem.

"Oh yes, you're right, this is the one I walked in with, silly me! I'll just be taking my sweater back and going then shall I?" I'm sure a manager would be called then at least :]

I would guess that he was pissed off at the call right before yours, so was already feeling aggressive when he picked up yours. He realised you were right, so had to put you on hold for a couple of minutes so he could un-tilt himself

Definitely.

My internet was constantly cutting out and I couldn't convince Comcast it was something on their end. Everyone in the condo building I was staying at was having the same problems.

Literally 20 phone calls in the course of a month.
I buy a new splitter for the cables because "if I have an old one that might be the problem" then I buy a new wireless router because they're still blaming me then I ask for the higher speed 'business class' or whatever and tell them "I don't care how much it costs...I just want the internet to work."

4 different tech guys get sent out at various times and have trouble figuring out the problem so they are going to send out a higher-up tech or something. Then I get sent to the back of the line and they send out an entry-level tech again. And he's ready to report back that the problem must be in my wires under the carpet because the signal from the tap is fine. I say, "Dude. It's an INTERMITTENT problem. Sometimes the signal is great. Other times it craps out."
I also explain that all my neighbors are complaining about it too.

I beg him to check the signal strength at the point of entry into the house before he leaves and he reluctantly agrees to do this. Thankfully the signal happened to intermittently be bad when he did this...thus proving that the problem was NOT tacks in the carpet or whatever theory he going to tell Comcast just because he was clueless and that's all he could think of.

It was a nightmare. Over and over again the internet cutting out and obviously that costs me significant money on about 20 poker tables. And they continually denied it was their problem.

Ordered a PC from Dell recently.
Confirmed with cust. service rep that it would ship with three sticks of 1G RAM.
PC arrives with 2 stick of 1G and two sticks of 512MB RAM filling up all slots.
Called them back for return and they offer me a $125 partial refund.
It's no wonder now why Dell is failing.

sports authority
they have a giant giant saying a certain model of a baseball glove is on sale
i get the last lefty glove they have in that model and it scans at regular price
I tell them its on sale blah blah blah
I physically take the sign from downstairs and show it to her she is still bewildered
Finally i take a righty glove bring it up and it scans at the sale price- she is then stunned that a righty glove is useless for me and it takes a good 15 more mins to get the glove at the sale price

At my last office, we had a comcast tech out several times to diagnose a problem.

He determined that the point of entry for the building was on the roof. This was during the summer. He insisted that the cause of the problem was "suck out" (yes, my cable internet sucked out on me), which is apparently what he said happens in hot weather. It involves the inner portion of the cable expanding or contracting and "sucking out" of the connector. The next 2-3 techs that came out all laughed hysterically when we told them that.

freakin - the different theories of the various techs and their different levels of knowledge struck me as interesting as well throughout my ordeal.

I will say that their phone support was very professional and somewhat helpful and/or sympathetic. I appreciate phone-support that I can understand and doesn't speak with such a thick accent or on such a bad connection that I have to ask them to repeat everything 4 times.

So I moved to Pittsburgh and I'm ready to try Verizon Fios because Comcast scared the crap out of me. Verizon put me on hold freaking forever and then took forever to place my order and then informed me that they would be over in about a month to install it. Ummm, a month? I kind of need internet now...I'll get back to you.
I call Comcast and,as usual, they answer extremely quickly. They can get it installed in a couple of days.

So I'm trying it out with Comcast again but if the same issues happen I'm not going to be nearly as patient with them. No more of this month of 20 phone-calls crap. It will be off to Verizon for me.

i switched to FIOS and absolutely love it.

I would not, however, order it unless I was replacing existing service. The setup process is very lengthy and they often do not have fiber going to the correct places. Mine took several weeks and I got slowrolled several times.

Now that it is in, I am VERY happy with the speed and uptime. I have had one issue since i got it installed (6-8 months i think) and that was a routing issue.

I called them to ask about it, and the first-level tech I got said it was scheduled router maintenance that was expected to be completed within 3 hours, and it was.

I have to admit to really loving Comcast customer service. I've had them for internet service only for the last 4 years, and any time there's been an outage or a problem of some sort, they've either talked me through it perfectly or fixed it immediately (or as soon as humanly possible.

As for TV service, DirecTV is both an awesome product and a fantastic customer service provider.