Blisstering Solutions

Frank Eliason took the time to respond to last Wednesday’s post  about Comcast’s somewhat dubious idea of having customers hook up digital converter boxes themselves, which was indeed nice of him. However, some parts of Frank’s response were not particularly mollifying. Frank pointed out that…

“Customers have a choice, and they can, if they prefer, have a technician out to do the install. If I am not mistaken, I believe the cost is $30, which is much less than the actual cost to send out a technician.”

I reviewed the material I had received from Comcast and the $30 option was nowhere to be seen. Anyhow, I hooked everything up on Friday, and because of some fairly confusing instructions (three different brochures helpfully offered “start here!” on their covers), the fact that the company sent one more converter box than we needed (and for which we were going to be charged a rental fee), and some problem associating the boxes with my bill when I called to activate, the total time of install was one hour, 55 minutes, 32 seconds, including 59 minutes, 19 seconds on the phone. Hooking and unhooking various boxes did not require any technical skill, but it sure took time.

The two hours aside, the part of Frank’s response that really stings is this:

“The reason for the shift to digital is it will free a lot of bandwidth, which will allow for a lot more HD, which is in high demand. We understand it may be an inconvenience but it will offer the options for more services and features in the future.”

In other words, I (and many other customers) did this so as to free up bandwidth that, ostensibly, would be then re-sold back to Comcast customers who want HD services. Let me re-state that: I did the work (in my case, two hours of work) to 1) get the service I was already paying for and 2) to give Comcast the ability to sell me more stuff. The odds of Comcast’s ability to up-sell me services at this point are probably easy to calculate.

My original point was that many customers believe their service providers don’t value their time. I think that’s been borne out.

Now, I have to say that some of Comcast’s call center agents are very good at what they do. They seem to be as honestly flummoxed about things as I am and they are profuse with their apologies, and they do eventually get things taken care of if you stay with them long enough. I just wish they didn’t have to get so much practice.