Internet cancellation horror story goes viral

[Scrumptious]

Internet cancellation horror story goes viral



Ryan Block simply wanted to cancel his Comcast internet service

Instead of a short phone call with the company, however, his experience turned into a 20-minute ordeal, as Block and his wife were berated by a Comcast "retention specialist" who doggedly refused to accept the request.

"Help me understand why you don't want faster internet?" he repeatedly asked. "I'm trying to help you. You're not letting me help you."

Mr Block, a technology journalist who works for AOL, recorded the final eight minutes of the call and shared the audio with his 82,000 Twitter followers. The speed at which the clip went viral - the Soundcloud audio file had almost 4 million plays within two days - reflects that Mr Block is not alone in his frustration with major telecommunications providers.

The nameless Comcast employee took a fair amount of bashing on social media - he was called "psychotic" and "crazy and a little bit scary" and compared to a "condescending, needy ex-boyfriend from hell".



When Comcast engaged in textbook public-relations damage control, however, apologising to the Blocks, laying the blame at the feet of the customer service representative and promising "quick action", the company became the focus of the internet's rage.

Maybe, commenters speculated, the pressure Comcast puts on its employees to do anything they can to prevent cancellation has created a culture that led to this particular worker's over-the-top hysteria.



"I hope the quick action you take is a thorough evaluation of your culture and policies, and not the termination of the rep," Mr Block tweeted.

"Nice job throwing your rep under the bus," tweeted Peter Welch. "Doubt he wanted to be on that call any more than @Ryan did."

"As someone who works in a similar company, while that rep was excessively aggressive, we're trained and held accountable to do that," tweeted Fabian Cruz.

On Reddit, someone claiming to be a Comcast employee explained that retention representatives are compensated based on how many cancellations they prevent. If they fail to reverse at least 75%, they get nothing.

"These guys fight tooth and nail to keep every customer because if they don't meet their numbers they don't get paid," txmadison writes.

It's a sympathetic perspective that the Awl's John Herrman finds compelling.

"The customer service rep is trapped in an impossible position, in which any cancellation, even one he can't control, will reflect poorly on his performance," he writes. "By the time news of this lost customer reaches his supervisor, it will be data - it will be the wrong data, and it will likely be factored into a score, or a record, that is either directly or indirectly tied to his compensation or continued employment."

Comcast is currently attempting to obtain approval from the US government to merge with fellow telecommunications giant Time Warner Cable. But a monopoly-aspiring Comcast, staffed by belligerent customer service representatives, is just the sort of nightmare scenario some commentators are imagining.

"What happens when the same corporate financial goals and institutional pressures that encourage an individual service rep to go berserk on the phone are applied to a huge sector of the entire US economy?" asks Salon's Andrew Leonard.

"That's what so scary about this Comcast call - what we are hearing isn't just one guy losing it; it's the howl of unrestrained market forces, red in tooth and claw. Give a company monopoly power, and it's the only sound we'll hear."

source

[kjf]

On Reddit, someone claiming to be a Comcast employee explained that retention representatives are compensated based on how many cancellations they prevent. If they fail to reverse at least 75%, they get nothing.

"These guys fight tooth and nail to keep every customer because if they don't meet their numbers they don't get paid," txmadison writes.

Worth quoting:

I've been an employee of Comcast for almost the last 9 years, as an SBA in BI, NE&TO, Customer Service and Marketing. I worked for Comcast Corporate (meaning the headquarters in Philly) so I dealt with all of our divisions and regions for the US, because of my position I was frequently in budget/planning meetings and was handling data for subscribers for the same, I've seen down to the penny the monthly earnings for years, I know how much goes to tax, how much is pure profit, I know what the total payroll cost for the company is, etc - I wasn't a high level executive or anything, I'm a data analyst, I analyze shit. I left the company a few months ago, so I'm not really worried about saying anything here (I also never signed anything requiring me not to disclose anything I've said or am about to say.)

When you call into the IVR (the 1800 comcast that makes that annoying clicking noise) and you answer the prompts (1 for cable tv, 2 for high speed internet, etc and then 1 for new service or 2 for a problem etc etc) you get routed to a specific department.

When you call in to disconnect, you get routed to the Retention department, their job is to try to keep you. The guy on the phone is a Retention Specialist (which is just a Customer Account Executive who takes primarily calls from people disconnecting their service.)

If I was reviewing this guys calls I'd agree that this is an example of going a little too hard at it, but here's the deal (and this is not saying they're doing the right thing, this is just how it works). First of all these guys have a low hourly rate. In the states I've worked in they start at about 10.50-12$/hr. The actual money that they make comes from their metrics for the month which depends on the department they're in. In sales this is obvious, the more sales you make the better you do.

In retention, the more products you save per customer the better you do, and the more products you disconect the worst you do (if a customer with a triple play disconnects, you get hit as losing every one of those lines of business, not just losing one customer.) These guys fight tooth and nail to keep every customer because if they don't meet their numbers they don't get paid.

Comcast uses "gates" for their incentive pays, which means that if you fall below a certain threshold (which tend to be stretch goals in the first place) then instead of getting a reduced amount, you get 0$. Let's say that if you retain 85% of your customers or more (this means 85% of the lines of businesses that customers have when they talk to you, they still have after they talk to you), you get 100% of your payout - which might be 5-10$ per line of business. At 80% you might only get 75% of your payout, and at 75% you get nothing.

The CAEs (customer service reps) watch these numbers daily, and will fight tooth and nail to stay above the "I get nothing" number. This guy went too far, you're not supposed to flat out argue with them. But comcast literally provides an incentive for this kind of behavior. It's the same reason peoples bills are always fucked up, people stuffing them with things they don't need or in some cases don't even agree to.

Comcast wasn't always that bad, I watched the steady decline over the years I was there - and the attitude that is pervasive in customer service flowed over into the other departments like a cancer. There is a giant propaganda machine at Comcast focused on the employees, they send out emails and brochures and have the bigwigs come in to talk about things like why net neutrality is bad and encourage the company (via emails to every employee) to speak out against it.

I left because the culture there is disgusting, there is nothing redeemable about the behavior, and it's just headed in a worse direction. The people who try to advocate for customers are liquidated.

I say it as a loyal Comcast employee for almost a decade, if you have Comcast - get out now, you're just wasting your money. They're going to increase your bill 3-5% twice a year, it's part of the annual budgeting process even though our costs actually go down. The internet business (as in, high speed customers) is almost purely profit, and it's turned down on purpose like everyone here already knows. Comcast has DOCSIS 3 capabilities and the infrastructure to support it in most major areas (this means gigabit speeds, by the way) - it can be activated simply by pushing the proper bootfiles out to the modems. This can be evidenced anywhere they have competition, they can respond overnight.
If there's not a serious change in legislation or regulation, I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel.


TL;DR - Comcast provides heavy incentives for this kind of behavior, it's been on a steady trend heavily towards this for years, the entire corporate culture is toxic and there is a pervasive 'us against them' attitude. Also the profit margin is insanely big. You shouldn't do business with Comcast.

[Devin]

I've been an employee of Comcast for almost the last 9 years, as an SBA in BI, NE&TO, Customer Service and Marketing. I worked for Comcast Corporate (meaning the headquarters in Philly) so I dealt with all of our divisions and regions for the US, because of my position I was frequently in budget/planning meetings and was handling data for subscribers for the same, I've seen down to the penny the monthly earnings for years, I know how much goes to tax, how much is pure profit, I know what the total payroll cost for the company is, etc - I wasn't a high level executive or anything, I'm a data analyst, I analyze shit. I left the company a few months ago, so I'm not really worried about saying anything here (I also never signed anything requiring me not to disclose anything I've said or am about to say.)

When you call into the IVR (the 1800 comcast that makes that annoying clicking noise) and you answer the prompts (1 for cable tv, 2 for high speed internet, etc and then 1 for new service or 2 for a problem etc etc) you get routed to a specific department.

When you call in to disconnect, you get routed to the Retention department, their job is to try to keep you. The guy on the phone is a Retention Specialist (which is just a Customer Account Executive who takes primarily calls from people disconnecting their service.)

If I was reviewing this guys calls I'd agree that this is an example of going a little too hard at it, but here's the deal (and this is not saying they're doing the right thing, this is just how it works). First of all these guys have a low hourly rate. In the states I've worked in they start at about 10.50-12$/hr. The actual money that they make comes from their metrics for the month which depends on the department they're in. In sales this is obvious, the more sales you make the better you do.

In retention, the more products you save per customer the better you do, and the more products you disconect the worst you do (if a customer with a triple play disconnects, you get hit as losing every one of those lines of business, not just losing one customer.) These guys fight tooth and nail to keep every customer because if they don't meet their numbers they don't get paid.

Comcast uses "gates" for their incentive pays, which means that if you fall below a certain threshold (which tend to be stretch goals in the first place) then instead of getting a reduced amount, you get 0$. Let's say that if you retain 85% of your customers or more (this means 85% of the lines of businesses that customers have when they talk to you, they still have after they talk to you), you get 100% of your payout - which might be 5-10$ per line of business. At 80% you might only get 75% of your payout, and at 75% you get nothing.

The CAEs (customer service reps) watch these numbers daily, and will fight tooth and nail to stay above the "I get nothing" number. This guy went too far, you're not supposed to flat out argue with them. But comcast literally provides an incentive for this kind of behavior. It's the same reason peoples bills are always fucked up, people stuffing them with things they don't need or in some cases don't even agree to.

Comcast wasn't always that bad, I watched the steady decline over the years I was there - and the attitude that is pervasive in customer service flowed over into the other departments like a cancer. There is a giant propaganda machine at Comcast focused on the employees, they send out emails and brochures and have the bigwigs come in to talk about things like why net neutrality is bad and encourage the company (via emails to every employee) to speak out against it.

I left because the culture there is disgusting, there is nothing redeemable about the behavior, and it's just headed in a worse direction. The people who try to advocate for customers are liquidated.

I say it as a loyal Comcast employee for almost a decade, if you have Comcast - get out now, you're just wasting your money. They're going to increase your bill 3-5% twice a year, it's part of the annual budgeting process even though our costs actually go down. The internet business (as in, high speed customers) is almost purely profit, and it's turned down on purpose like everyone here already knows. Comcast has DOCSIS 3 capabilities and the infrastructure to support it in most major areas (this means gigabit speeds, by the way) - it can be activated simply by pushing the proper bootfiles out to the modems. This can be evidenced anywhere they have competition, they can respond overnight.
If there's not a serious change in legislation or regulation, I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel.


TL;DR - Comcast provides heavy incentives for this kind of behavior, it's been on a steady trend heavily towards this for years, the entire corporate culture is toxic and there is a pervasive 'us against them' attitude. Also the profit margin is insanely big. You shouldn't do business with Comcast.

That was eye-opening. Wow.