4 ms·

I thoroughly dislike Comcast and would go to great effort to avoid their service. That said, as funny as this is, this to me is more of a failing on a personal

by dkrich 12y ago

I thoroughly dislike Comcast and would go to great effort to avoid their service. That said, as funny as this is, this to me is more of a failing on a personal level than by Comcast as a whole. He seems more angry at the caller because he's losing the argument and not getting any concessions and just wants some sort of response or willingness to hear what he's saying. I sincerely believe that by the midpoint of that recording he was no longer interested in keeping the customer, he just wanted to win a point in the argument to protect his ego. Interestingly, these are the last people you want handling sales/customer retention calls because they don't empathize with the customer or see the situation from their point of view at all. They're more worried about their appearance than the ultimate business goal, which is increasing sales. I'm pretty certain that he would be reprimanded for this behavior.

elicash 12y ago
Having worked in Customer Service (at a different company) on the phones, I see very little chance that this isn't the way his entire office is run. Most likely they weekly have their phone calls listened to by supervisors and evaluated, as well as constant tracking to see who has the most cancelations -- with serious consequences for those cancelations. Could be just an individual, too. Or something in between. I just doubt that.
DanBC 12y ago
> I'm pretty certain that he would be reprimanded for this behavior. I reckon he'd retain more people and thus get better bonuses, and not reprimands.
VLM 12y ago
"I'm pretty certain that he would be reprimanded for this behavior." I could not disagree more. That makes the huge assumption that the retention department is measured and paid by metrics like "increasing sales". I am almost 100% certain that would not be the case. The longer you keep a quitting customer on the phone the less likely they are to leave, the more likely they are to give up hope and keep paying. Awesome job. The company pays the retention rep to read arguments from a script to a quitting customer, and the rep read all of them, awesome. Lets say we get $150/month from this customer and it costs us $8/hr for this customer's monthly hour long call to argue and lie to the customer. The company is not seeing a financial problem here. At $5/day revenue even if all the rep does is slow down the customer by one pro-rated day, as long as the rep spends less than 30 minutes per call the company is still making a "profit". More typically if you just lie to the customer and get on average half a billing period out of them, thats an awesome profit. You get what you measure and select for. "because they don't empathize with the customer" Why would a monopoly provider want to do that? It doesn't even make sense. Like hiring a police chief based on how well he empathizes with the crooks, or promoting a military officer based on how sympathetic he is to the other side, or appointing a religious leader based on how strongly he believes in the opposition's point of view.
- dkrich 12y ago
  Believe me, I understand the "this makes good business sense on paper" angle. To me it is very clear that this guy is not reading from a script. He is clearly angered and frustrated on a personal level by the customer's unwillingness to talk to him. The best example of this is probably at the end of the call when he refuses to give a confirmation code. I'd bet a week's pay that he had one to give, but was so angry that he just wanted to be argumentative to score a point in the argument. It almost reminded me of childhood fights I had with my brother when I was twelve. Why would a monopoly provider want to do that? But Comcast isn't a monopoly in most major markets, and I'm guessing if this guy worked as a tech blogger he probably lives in a market where he can choose from Fios, Uverse, Comcast, etc. Increasingly people have more choice in which service provider they use, and even in the markets where Comcast is a monopoly, it is seldom good business to piss off your customers. There's a difference between putting up barriers between somebody who is upset and is threatening to cancel service and somebody who clearly has made the decision to leave and wants the service to be disconnected, which clearly this guy was. When I worked in a major telecom we used to review customer service calls and I can tell you that this guy would not be applauded for that behavior. Probably given a stern warning and possibly terminated. Telecoms may be ruthless business people, but nobody is stupid enough to believe that this kind of behavior is good business. The guy was frustrated and did his job poorly. That's pretty much what this boils down to.

by dkrich 12y ago

elicash 12y ago

Having worked in Customer Service (at a different company) on the phones, I see very little chance that this isn't the way his entire office is run. Most likely they weekly have their phone calls listened to by supervisors and evaluated, as well as constant tracking to see who has the most cancelations -- with serious consequences for those cancelations. Could be just an individual, too. Or something in between. I just doubt that.

DanBC 12y ago

> I'm pretty certain that he would be reprimanded for this behavior. I reckon he'd retain more people and thus get better bonuses, and not reprimands.

VLM 12y ago

"I'm pretty certain that he would be reprimanded for this behavior." I could not disagree more. That makes the huge assumption that the retention department is measured and paid by metrics like "increasing sales". I am almost 100% certain that would not be the case. The longer you keep a quitting customer on the phone the less likely they are to leave, the more likely they are to give up hope and keep paying. Awesome job. The company pays the retention rep to read arguments from a script to a quitting customer, and the rep read all of them, awesome. Lets say we get $150/month from this customer and it costs us $8/hr for this customer's monthly hour long call to argue and lie to the customer. The company is not seeing a financial problem here. At $5/day revenue even if all the rep does is slow down the customer by one pro-rated day, as long as the rep spends less than 30 minutes per call the company is still making a "profit". More typically if you just lie to the customer and get on average half a billing period out of them, thats an awesome profit. You get what you measure and select for. "because they don't empathize with the customer" Why would a monopoly provider want to do that? It doesn't even make sense. Like hiring a police chief based on how well he empathizes with the crooks, or promoting a military officer based on how sympathetic he is to the other side, or appointing a religious leader based on how strongly he believes in the opposition's point of view.

dkrich 12y ago
Believe me, I understand the "this makes good business sense on paper" angle. To me it is very clear that this guy is not reading from a script. He is clearly angered and frustrated on a personal level by the customer's unwillingness to talk to him. The best example of this is probably at the end of the call when he refuses to give a confirmation code. I'd bet a week's pay that he had one to give, but was so angry that he just wanted to be argumentative to score a point in the argument. It almost reminded me of childhood fights I had with my brother when I was twelve. Why would a monopoly provider want to do that? But Comcast isn't a monopoly in most major markets, and I'm guessing if this guy worked as a tech blogger he probably lives in a market where he can choose from Fios, Uverse, Comcast, etc. Increasingly people have more choice in which service provider they use, and even in the markets where Comcast is a monopoly, it is seldom good business to piss off your customers. There's a difference between putting up barriers between somebody who is upset and is threatening to cancel service and somebody who clearly has made the decision to leave and wants the service to be disconnected, which clearly this guy was. When I worked in a major telecom we used to review customer service calls and I can tell you that this guy would not be applauded for that behavior. Probably given a stern warning and possibly terminated. Telecoms may be ruthless business people, but nobody is stupid enough to believe that this kind of behavior is good business. The guy was frustrated and did his job poorly. That's pretty much what this boils down to.