Comcast is an American global telecommunications and mass media
company that is the largest broadcasting and cable television
Company in the world by income and revenue. It is the second
largest pay TV Company after AT&T, largest cable TV company and
one of the largest company providing home internet service in the
United States. The company is headed by Brian L. Roberts as MD and
CEO of the Company.
The company is known as having terrible track record for
customer service and this has happened to an extent that the
company was given an award for the worst company in America in
2014.
The root cause of customer service problems
are:
- The overall cable TV Industry has customer satisfaction
index below 60 in the US which means that not only Comcast
but other companies operating in this industry are providing the
same level of customer service. This creates protection for Comcast
as it knows that they will not have any other option to switch to.
The increase in revenue of Comcast on Y-o-Y proves that a company
in this industry can remain profitable even without keeping
customers happy.
- The negative attitude of management to solve the
problem- Comcast is now blamed for long that it has failed
to solve the problem of customers and the problem is still not
corrected, it implies that the management is not at all concerned
to provide excellent customer experience. No policy changes or
other measures are evident at the company.
- The workforce required to solve customer problems at
Comcast is also low, the number of complaints keep rising
and the employees are Comcast are not able to solve it with the
same speed. At some complaint boards customers have also mentioned
that they don't find anyone at Comcast who will listen to their
complaints.
- Focus on revenue rather than customer
satisfaction- It seems that Comcast is more concerned with
their profits and not what are the needs of the customer and how it
will be satisfied.
- Political association of Comcast- Comcast
spends millions of dollars annually on lobbying and they have
strong connections in the political arena which makes them less
sensitive towards the customers as they know their business will
keep growing be it whatever conditions.
- Size of Comcast- Comcast is one of the biggest
players in US market with its presence all over the world which
gives the powers of a monopolistic player to company.
If I was Mr Herrin appointed as Senior Vice President, Customer
Experience at Comcast I would take the following steps to improve
customer service:
- Making the management sensitive about the problems faced by
customers, I would reinforce this thought in the minds of senior
management that we are surviving because of customers and we must
listen to their problems.
- Increase the number of people working in the customer service
department of the company so that they can work more efficiently
and effectively and our presence can be felt by the customers.
- Increase the number of channels on which a customer can contact
us in the case of grievances such as Twitter handles and Facebook
page.
- I would try to make Comcast a company which looks to keep its
customers happy rather than focusing on just revenue, my motto
would be customer satisfaction is first and revenue is secondary
and by this way I would try to improve the rating of company in
different customer satisfaction surveys.
- I would randomly call and check if the problems of a customer
is solved who has registered a complaint.
- I would try to change the attitude of my employees as well so
that they can attend and solve customer complaints in a polite
way.