Is Twitter Really Helping Comcast’s Customer Service?

Posted on 21 October 2009, at 4:53 pm, by Jason Reese

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

geardiary_twitter_comcast_service

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how Twitter has changed the corporate culture for Comcast. In fact, the chatter first started back in January with a big to-do in Business Week. So, is Twitter actually helping provide real customer service? Is this just a Public Relations gimick, or is it truly — um — Comcastic?

[image courtesy of TechCrunch ]

So, assuming you are a Twitter user, you can actually follow Frank Eliason of Comcast. Frank is the Senior Director of Comcast National Customer Service. Heck, his profile even provides a handy email address if you don’t care for or wish to use Twitter at all — We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com. Using “Web 2.0″ technologies to reach out to customers and try to assist them should definitely be applauded; but, does it really work?

Now, I am currently a Comcast customer. We get our (basic) cable television and our internet service through Comcast. This past year alone we’ve had two internet service outages. The first lasted 4 days, and another lasted 2. Not too bad, right? I survived by tethering a smartphone. The other folks in my neighborhood who work solely from home and rely on their internet connection to, you know, earn a living weren’t near as forgiving. The local coffee shops with WiFi connections fill up pretty early

When both outages occurred I can tell you that the nauseous, knotting-up feeling in my stomach was not caused by the H1N1 flu virus, but from knowing I was going to have to spend the day on the phone with customer service. Now, I feel for anyone who provides customer service. If you are in customer service and you are getting a phone call, it is just not going to be positive. Nope, it’s going to be from frustrated, angry customers. All. Day. Long.

No one enjoys calling customer service. That is certainly not to say that there isn’t any great customer service — just that I don’t know anyone personally who grins ear to ear at the chance to be put on hold twenty minutes and passed from one person to the next. This is, of course, after you submit to what I call “IVR hell” when asked to speak to identify the service problem, and then sent on to suffer through never-ending automated menu options that have absolutely nothing to do with what you’re needing a live customer representative to actually help address. In this respect, a resource like GetHuman is definitely your friend.

OK. So when I was able to speak with the reps (yes, I am inferring there were multiple calls over multiple days throughout both outages) we went through all of the basic troubleshooting to confirm that the problem wasn’t with my equipment. We followed all of the steps again even though all were tried prior to contacting customer service (no problem, they have to make sure you verified that your computer and your modem are, you know, plugged in).

Reboot the computer. Check. OK, reset the modem then reboot the computer. Check. Verify the lights that are/are not blinking on the modem. Check. Unplug the cable line, reset your modem, reboot the computer, plug everything back up again, throw salt over your shoulder, rub your lucky rabbit’s foot, stand on one leg and hop in a circle, cross your fingers. Check and Check.

Oh, that’s odd. It is still not working?…

Thus begins the back and forth over whether a technician needs to come into your home to check or replace the cable modem when an outside technician really just needs to come out to the neighborhood since I was pretty sure my modem wasn’t the culprit of putting our block out of service.

Long story short (I know, too late!) after the third day of calls asking for assistance to restore service, I made a comment on my own Twitter account from a BlackBerry (something like “Day Three: Call #50 to Comcast Customer Service…beginning to feel Amish with no home internet connection”).

Then came the shocker: I got a direct reply from my “tweet” about the problem by one of the 11 people who work for Frank Eliason and monitor Twitter for Comcast. I’m pretty sure they do more throughout the day than just answer complaints through Twitter, but I was still surprised to get a response back from anyone working with Comcast.

That’s the good news.

geardiary_twitter_comcast_service_002

The not-so-good? The exchanges really don’t do much in the way of resolving technical issues or service outages. Twitter isn’t going to really replace having to contact customer service to get someone out to your area. My exchanges with ComcastBonnie and ComcastMelissa (Bonnie replied to me during the first service outage, Melissa sent a message on the second) didn’t expedite anyone coming or having the service restored sooner. After days of calling, I (and my neighbors) still had to call in to try and get an outside technician dispatched to resolve the problem — which turned out to be faulty equipment that needed to be replaced in the neighborhood. This turned out to be the case for both outages and six days of no-service.

geardiary_twitter_comcast_service_003

Comcastic? Not quite.

The number of customers who would be on Twitter to begin with (and “tweet” about a service problem) is probably a small sample of Comcast customers overall. Second, that sample would need to be using a smartphone with a cellular data connection — or using an internet connection from another location altogether – to be “tweeting” about connectivity issues.

I would love to hear from folks out there who have had a positive experience and had problems actually resolved through Tweets with Comcast (That Business Week article referenced at the beginning of this post does try to point to a few instances where messages exchanged via Twitter “saved the day”). In my experience, however, the use of Twitter seemed to merely put on a good PR show. It did little to help with real-life service issues.

[via TechCrunch]

How you would like to subscribe to Gear Diary? We offer:

Full Post Feed |

Summary Feed |

Comments Feed

Tags | Social Networking, Twitter

2 Comments For This Post

doogald Says:
October 21st, 2009 at 8:09 pm
I actually have Charter Communications, and I can say with great assurance that their tech support twitter presence worked very well in my case.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a sudden internet outage – TV remained fine – and I posted a tweet lamenting the fact that I was going to have to call Charter’s atrocious tech support. I received a tweet back from one of their support staff (not that I did not know of this team before I started; my tweet was not directed at them) who – via twitter DMs – was able to set up a technician’s appointment, followed up to make sure that the call went fine (it turned out that a service update affected the cable modem I was using – the tech was replacing his fifth in two days when he showed up at my house). Not only that, he passed along an email that I sent detailing past problems that I had experienced with Charter’s support to his supervisors, called me to explain the reasons that Charter tech support must do some things (such as verify your account with the last 4 digits of your SSN, which I hate – it’s an FCC regulation, it turns out, but can be replaced by a PIN that you can choose, and which he set up for me on the phone), and gave me six months introductory customer pricing. I never had to call Charter support.

So, not Comcast, but in my case it was surprisingly fantastic.
Jason Reese Says:
October 21st, 2009 at 8:56 pm
@doogald: Now THAT is Impressive! My two outage experiences w/ the Comcast “Tweets” were merely “Can I Help” and “We’re working hard to improve communications within the Company and to our Customers”…which, in my experience, didn’t really do much (two days later I did get service restored after additional phone calls). But your experience being detailed to how the TECH from Charter used the communications to help you and provide additional information on the way — all WITHOUT A SINGLE CALL from you to their customer service — is, in a word, outstanding.