Yaicha

Sorry I have been away from this blog for a while. I just moved, and the fun still has not stopped. Boxes are piled everywhere, the kitchen is not unpacked at all, and heck if I know where the towels and washclothes are. I’ll be back after I dig out.

But, I should comment on Comcast, both the good news and the bad. First, the bad news: even though I told the customer service rep when I called to tell them I was moving that every time in the past when I have moved Comcast has screwed things up, and even though he assured me he had taken care of everything for me this time . . . you guessed it, it got screwed up. I waited two hours when I had far better things to do, and Comcast never showed up to set up my service.

So, I called, navigated my way through their annoying and illogical IVR (why, when I have cable, Internet and phone service with them, do they make me choose only one of them as the reason I am calling?), and reached Gabriel in the North Philadelphia call center. He told me I had no service call scheduled. I told him I did. He looked into it and confirmed that I had, indeed, talked to someone on Monday, but that same someone had not scheduled an appointment in the system and had not turned on my new service, either. I filled Gabriel in on my sad tale of Comcast’s repeated incompetence every time I move, and he asked for my patience while he worked on the issues.

While on hold, I contemplated calling Verizon to see about switching to FiOS. It’s supposed to be very speedy, I hear. Then Gabriel came back to ask me for more time while he continued to work on my issues. “Sure,” I said, thinking nasty thoughts about Comcast and all the boxes I still needed to pack before the movers came the next morning.

Finally, Gabriel finished and filled me in on what he had been doing. He had set up a new appointment for me two days later — the soonest he could schedule it. “OK,” I said. And he had gotten approval to waive all my installation fees. “Not bad,” I thought. And he knocked $20 off my monthly bill. “Nice!” And he extended my free HBO and Starz promotional deal. “Very nice!”

I have to hand it to Gabriel. I sure hated wasting two hours waiting for the Comcast guy to not show up, and I was truly fed up with three times in a row of Comcast messing up my service move (how hard should this be? People move all the time!). But I have to admit, I felt adequately compensated by the concessions Gabriel offered me in exchange for my inconvenience.

My first thought was that Comcast may really be coming around and learning about customer service. And then I thought again. Most likely Comcast is learning what it’s like to compete for customers. FiOS is in my area and I had a Verizon guy at my door a couple of months ago pushing the service. As a customer, I say, it’s about time! Competition pushes companies to focus on delivering for the customer better than anything else ever invented.