Comcast (CMCSA) is still making money, even in the recession, and still making its customers unhappy.
For the second straight year, the telecommunications giant came in at No. 2 in the Customer Service Hall of Shame, edging out third-place
Sprint Nextel (S) by less than a percentage point in the MSN Money-Zogby International poll. Of the people familiar with Comcast's customer service, 41.3% called it "poor." Last year, 42% said it was poor.
"I'm not happy about it," said Rick Germano, Comcast's senior vice president of customer operations. "We're definitely committed to improving the customer experience."
Comcast provides some combination of Internet, telephone or cable service to 50.6 million American homes.
After five years of marked growth, the company attributed much of its customer dissatisfaction last year to growing pains. It pointed to plans to boost its call-center staff 30%, invest in training and upgrade diagnostic equipment.
Germano said the company has done all that and more.
"The other piece of this is customers are real people, (and) they have long memories," he said. "As much as they love our products, they want us to earn their trust."
Speaking with customers over the past year, Germano said he was reminded of just how often the frustration can be traced back to technical problems. As a result, Comcast has been striving to correct underlying physical issues and to improve technicians' ability to resolve issues quickly. The moves are paying off, Germano said. Comcast has, he said:
- Reduced the number of calls from customers reporting a problem by 10%.
- Decreased the need for a repeat visit from a technician by 25%.
"We are definitely seeing improvement," Germano said. "It's going to take a while for customers to actually believe it."
In the MSN Money-Zogby survey, 28.1% of those who had experience with Comcast's customer service rated it "fair," 20.7% "good" and 9.8% "excellent."
Enter, too, social media. Comcast has agents using Twitter, as well nearly a dozen workers who spend their days scanning the blogosphere for reports of problems. "If they see a post, they'll say, 'I'm from Comcast. Can I help?'" spokeswoman Jenni Moyer said.
Despite the recession, business is good for the cable and Internet industry. Comcast reported $34.7 billion in sales in the past year and profit of $2.59 billion, a growth of 10% and 5.5%, respectively, from the year before.
