Comcast Confessions: why the cable guy is always late

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/4/5960251/comcast-confessions-why-the-cable-guy-is-always-late

by smacktoward • 12 years ago

70 15 12 years ago

theverge.com

raldi• 12 years ago

Saved you a click: they overbook

cheepin• 12 years ago

Had to click to confirm. Can confirm.

coldcode• 12 years ago

This is what happens when you have a monopoly (in this case a regional monopoly). Customer service is an expense item, so minimize it and you make more profit, after all what can the customers do, move? I worked on a project for a company where the call center did reservations and customer service. They only paid the workers if they took a reservation; thus any customer service call resulted in a hangup. These customers never used their company again. The difference is a monopoly doesn't have to care as no one will leave.

classicsnoot• 12 years ago

It would appear that 'customer service' is an area in desperate need of a revolution. A relative of mine worked in the BAE call center for 6+ years, and they were constantly reviewed and retrained. This service was exclusively for BAE employees and contractors.

The trend of fucking over customers is a vestige of the near monopoly the distributed cable consortium has in the US. There is no real motivation to do better as most people don't give a shit until it affects them directly (@raldi).

This is probably a silly idea, but what about an all volunteer charity tech support? Are cable boxes really so mysterious and complicated as to be serviced only by 'specially' trained employees and 'vetted' contractors?

Domenic_S• 12 years ago

This is probably a silly idea, but what about an all volunteer charity tech support?

Only if we get prices cut by 90% in return!

padobson2• 12 years ago

Are cable boxes really so mysterious and complicated as to be serviced only by 'specially' trained employees and 'vetted' contractors?

I'm no expert in the area, but if a Modem or Cable box needs to be reconfigured on the service provider's end, you won't get that fixed with a charity service.

Though a charity service could reduce the volume of calls for the serious problems that require service provider intervention.

kabdib• 12 years ago

Cable boxes are nearly 100% remote controlled from the head-end (the management software I'm familiar with is eye-gougingly bad, btw). They can tell a lot about what's going on by looking at the box, and the status and logs it sends up.

You generally can't change the settings on a box because the state is protected from changes (you can break into boxes, but that still won't give you access to the video streams you're not entitled to, since that access is cryptographically protected from the head-end).

hackuser• 12 years ago

what about an all volunteer charity tech support?

Is Comcast a charity? Then why would I donate my time and expertise?

But that's what I end up doing when Comcast doesn't help my friends and family who are their customers.

padobson2• 12 years ago

I'm generally a Laissez-faire kind of guy, but the treatment I get from my cable company is a strong argument to drastically increase regulation, or even nationalize entire chunks of the industry.

If you're providing a service so poorly that nationalization seems like a good alternative, then your business probably deserves to be nationalized.

VLM2• 12 years ago

"If you're providing a service so poorly that nationalization seems like a good alternative, then your business probably deserves to be nationalized."

That deserves to be on a tee shirt. See also, health insurance, the financial system in general, and Government Motors.

ilaksh• 12 years ago

The problem is that there isn't competition. Nationalizing will not solve that problem.

jmt7les• 12 years ago

As a former techician for Comcast, the reason is that the management there is far removed from what actually goes on in the field, they have no idea how hectic the scheduling can be. When an appointment can reasonably take anywhere from 2min to 3+ hours, it takes much more flexibility on the management end to allow the work to be done properly instead of being forced to rush through it.

VLM2• 12 years ago

Its the difference between the airplane flight reservation model and the taxi reservation model.

Taxi model = you call and a on call guy is dispatched and if they're busy its first come first serve.

Airline model = you call and make a reservation onto an overbooked quota slot next week. Staffing is "optimized" next week to an acceptable level, to a monopoly, of overbooking and predicted failure.

People expect/demand the taxi model and don't understand the inherent results of the airline model.

The system is operating as designed. They just don't like the design.

The telecom hicap / biz side operated under the taxi model but residential telecom and cable has always operated under the airline reservation model as far as I know. I know from personal experience that both natgas and water and electricity operate under the taxi model, so its not something inherently impossible about visiting people's homes.

I wonder if anyone's ever tried the taxi model for residential services? Or if its a startup opportunity?

preinheimer2• 12 years ago

I worked as a contract cable installer back when cable internet was new. New enough that they used one guy to do the computer set up, and a second to do the cable wiring. As I was finishing my tenure they were switching over to "super techs" who would do both. I was the computer half. This was like 2000.

We had no interaction with the guys doing the cabling, they were a different company. I'd get a sheet of installs in the morning, as well as the time frames. 8-12, 12-5, and 8-5. If someone had managed to convince a rep we might see a shorter timeframe like 3-5, but they were pretty rare. I'd show up, slot a network card, plug in the cable modem if the cable guy had been there already, and leave.

Then I moved to the big city, where the company gave people specific times. 10, 11, 12, 1. etc. They tended to give the clustered appointments to the super techs, so I was driving all over the city, searching for parking, and waiting to get buzzed in. My first two weeks were rough, then I discovered the manager had been going light on my appointments while I learned the city. Then my appointment book started looking more like: 10, 10, 11, 12, 12, 12, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4. On good days I'd hit the closest double/triple/quadruple booked slot early, hit the second one one time, and try to race to the rest. Skipping lunch as required, or snacking on a nutrigran bar while wishing my car had A/C. On harder days I'd get to the first appointment barely on time, discover they had Windows NT and try to pawn off appointments while juggling IRQ settings.

Some days were an absolute mess, 8,8,8,12,12,12,12,5,5,5,5,5 or the like. You couldn't show up early for a 5, those folks were racing home to meet you as is. So I'd end up sitting in a park trying not to kill myself on a razor scooter for a few hours waiting for the next rush.

preinheimer2• 12 years ago

Random things that made me late:

- Being double booked in the first place (clearly)

- Customer has yet to unbox their computer.

- Customer had so much crap installed that simply rebooting took literally 10+ minutes.

- Buildings with slow elevators.

- Having to park 4 blocks away

I blogged another story here: http://blog.preinheimer.com/index.php?/archives/417-My-20-Ti...

Comcast Confessions: why the cable guy is always late

Related Stories