The Comcast Redemption: a case study about social networks and customer service

As you may have read last week, I was pretty frustrated with my Comcast customer service experience (or lack there of). After all, Comcast's mission statement promises:

We will deliver a superior experience to our customers every day. Our products will be the best and we will offer the most customer-friendly and reliable service in the market.

Yeah, you keep working on that....

But! as I suspected, Comcast's social media team was quick to sweep in and respond to my concerns. @ComcastBonnie found me on Twitter, Mark visited my blog and Boston's corporate center called me to solve the problem... all within 30 minutes.

No wonder Forbes gave Comcast a high-five for its "artful customer service" via Twitter.

My exchange with Comcast illustrates the importance of social networks for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Social media marketing requires that companies be social. If you are going to invade your customers' social networks, you have to be ready to engage with them. That means listening to them, responding to them, acknowledging them and rewarding them. Use the many search engines and aggregation tools out there to find your customers and save the day! Give your brand a personality and show that there are real people behind it!

At Paste one of the most successful marketing tactics I employed was having our hard-working marketing interns respond to each and every friend request on MySpace. They started leaving each friend/fan a personal comment, like "Great song choice for your page -- Thom Yorke is a genius." This took longer than clicking "Accept All Friend Requests" (and I'm sure my interns hated how tedious it was) but it gave Paste a truly viral presence: the comments were seen by other MySpace users, who then realized that Paste had a MySpace page and, in turn, sent their own friend requests. It also inspired public conversations with fans -- a trend that has continued now on Twitter, Facebook and Paste's own website.

A company that posts a Facebook page and measures its success based on the number of fans the page attract are missing the point. Use social networks as a way to bring your brand to life.

Thanks, Comcast, for coming through today. Now if we could only work on your 1-800 phone system...

Are You There, Comcast? It's Me, Caren.

Dear Comcast,

I've encountered a lot of bad customer service operations in the past... but yours is by far the worst. As the former manager of a customer service team, I take this stuff pretty seriously -- so much so that I volunteered to leave you customer feedback before I realized how terrible at it you were. I'm not surprised that you forgot to patch me through to the survey at the end of my call...

Your customerCentral website is fatally flawed and your phone system isn't much better.

Why am I posting a blog about this? Because it's the only way I can get through to you. If your social media team is any better than your customer service team, you'll find this letter with no problem (and actually try to help me).

Let's run through what happened to me earlier this week, shall we?

1) I turn on TV and see that my cable is not working. I log-in to your site to see what's going on and learn that you have my account on hold. Hmm... three months ago I set-up ongoing payments with you, and in fact my account reflects this... it even says my "account is already set-up for recurring payments"... yet you aren't deducting those payments? The credit card is valid, the checking account is established... yet you've made me look like a delinquent, probably ruined my credit and cut me off from LOST this week. #fail.

2) I go to pay my bill online (since you forgot to do it for me these past months), but your site won't process my payment.

3) I try to pay with another card. Your site reported a "System Error" and asks that I not try to resubmit, in case I'm overcharged (unlikely, given your track record).

4) I pick up the phone and do the old fashion thing: I call your 1-800 number. And, yes, I have an Atlanta area code on my phone... but shouldn't your CRM solution be smart enough to recognize that my cable box is in Boston? That I'm calling from Boston? That you're feeding me content in Boston? That maybe I don't want to be patched through to Atlanta's customer service teams, only to be told I can't be helped?

5) Atlanta Rep #1 forwards my call to Boston... to a doctor's office answering machine. (The only good to come of this is that it reminded me that I'm overdue for a doctor's check-up).

6) I call your 1-800 number again and my call is once more forwarded to Atlanta. I am given a new Boston number to call... when I do so, you hang up on me, citing a "technical error" with the call.

7) Call #3 to Atlanta means I have to go through this all again. At the end of the menu options and customer service chat, I'm told the Boston office is open at 7am and I have to find a landline to call from, or else my calls will continue to go to Atlanta -- even if I dial the Boston office directly.

8) I resort to your online chat option through CustomerCentral. I wait in an imaginary queue to chat with a representative. I am #9 in the queue and my session times-out before your "representative" can get to me. #superfail

I spent over 45 minutes trying to pay you -- that's right, 45 minutes trying to give you money --with no success. But you know the worst part? Being told "Thank you for choosing Comcast" every time I interact with you... I didn't choose Comcast; you were the only provider in this zip code!

Next time I'm choosing Hulu, ABC.com and iTunes instead.

Sincerely,

A Disgruntled Customer