Oh yes Comcast, this is about you. This will be, regrettably, my last dig on anything related to Comcast, but hopefully it will resolve any and all feelings related with the most recent experiences I’ve had (and my family has had) regarding their services.

Weeks ago I posted about the problems I had been having trying to get an outside cable line replaced by Comcast. Among other issues with their services, such as not showing up for scheduled appointments, never receiving cancellation calls from the service technicians, and generally brooding in a vat of growing discontentment with the company as a whole.

Several days after that post and after repeated service calls to 1-888-COMCAST, a technician finally came out to check on the line.

Well, I should say a technician just came out. When I met the technician outside he asked me why he had been called out. I responded “You don’t have a work order for what is to be done today at this address?”

His answer was “No.” He goes where dispatch tells him to go.

It’s no wonder service is so confusing through Comcast: no one on the customer service side actually talks to each other, and when technicians show up, they are uninformed as to what work actually needs to be done. This is a waste of everyone’s time; I have to explain yet again what needs to be done, regardless of how many service calls I’ve made or work orders have been processed for a specific problem.

It isn’t the technicians fault, it isn’t even the fault of dispatch: it’s a communication problem within Comcast as a whole.

After explaining to the technician why he was there and what needed to be done, he informed me that he didn’t have the authority or tools to bury an outside cable line, only to replace the feed line which runs from the house to the utility pole. He told me he could do this and put in a work order for a contractor to come out and complete the rest of the work.

I exclaimed that a work order had already been placed, over a month ago, to have this same thing done and that I simply wanted the work completed. I was told by the technician that sometimes the work orders “get misplaced” and that he’d be happy to submit another and place a priority on it.

Fantastic.

The feed line from the house to the utility pole was replaced and two days later without a call or appointment a contractor came out unannounced and buried the cable line. It only took 5 months of service calls with Comcast and a handful of no-shows with technicians for the work to be done.

The contractor did a clean job, the cable service is great, no gripes about the end product.

A final word on follow ups with Comcast.

Today, less than an hour ago, I found someone poking around the utility pole and the outside of the house. I went out to ask who they were and what they were doing. There was a truck with the Comcast logo parked at the curb and two men inside. One got out and approached me. I asked him if I could help him, he responded that he was here to bury my outside line. He had called before he walked around the house but no one answered (I was preoccupied with running a wash in the back of the house, exciting Saturday chores.)

Observations at this point:

• The only recognizable Comcast symbol was on the truck. The men had on plain clothes, dirty jeans and dirty t-shirts.
• My cable line was buried almost 2 weeks ago, and yet Comcast is sending out another crew to do the same job on a SATURDAY.
• This is why your customer base is crumbling.

When I informed the second contractor that the line had already been buried, almost 2 weeks actually, he asked me what the man looked like that buried the line.

Excuse me?

I repeated that the line was buried, the cable service was great, and thank you have a good day.

Comcast, my issues aren’t only that when I call you to make service appointments my phone calls are funneled through the Dominican Republic, that bother me (especially since I’m located 14 miles from a corporate headquarters) it’s that your sloppy service in the end costs me money and time. It’s that one minute I’m speaking with someone who is willing to help me, who is knowledgable about the company services and the next I’m speaking with someone who is chewing on their gum so loud I can hear it through the phone, along with the “um” and the “like.” You hire people to represent your company, but you have no pride in the people you hire and when they speak to your customers, show up at their residences, IT SHOWS. And this is a reflection of you and your brand.