When a call to cancel Comcast service descended into "a stunning display of hysteria and desperation," pretty much everyone who listened to a recording of the phone call agreed: it was painful to listen to.

Comcast Chief Operating Officer Dave Watson found it painful, too. In an internal memo published by The Consumerist, Watson wrote:

[I]t was painful to listen to this call, and I am not surprised that we have been criticized for it. Respecting our customers is fundamental, and we fell short in this instance. I know these Retention calls are tough, and I have tremendous admiration for our Retention professionals, who make it easy for customers to choose to stay with Comcast. We have a Retention queue because we believe in our products, and because we offer a great value when customers have the right facts to choose the package that works best for them. If a customer is not fully aware of what the product offers, we ask the Retention agent to educate the customer and work with them to find the right solution.

A Comcast spokesperson confirmed to Ars that the Watson memo published by The Consumerist is authentic. The unfortunate customer Watson referred to was Gdgt founder and AOL Vice President of Product Ryan Block, who posted a recording of the latter parts of a nearly 20-minute call in which a Comcast employee repeatedly refused to cancel Block's service.

Comcast issued a public statement last week that said, "The way in which our representative communicated with him is unacceptable and not consistent with how we train our customer service representatives." But that isn't entirely true, Watson's memo acknowledges. Comcast doesn't necessarily train employees to be rude and condescending, but it does train them to convince customers not to cancel their service.

"The agent on this call did a lot of what we trained him and paid him—and thousands of other Retention agents—to do," Watson wrote. "He tried to save a customer, and that’s important, but the act of saving a customer must always be handled with the utmost respect."

Unfortunately, Comcast employees have financial incentives to act the way the agent on the call did. An anonymous reddit user who claimed to be a Comcast employee wrote that "these guys fight tooth and nail to keep every customer because if they don't meet their numbers they don't get paid." (For more on the incentives that drive customer retention agents and how you can fight back, see our piece, "A guide to winning the customer service cancellation phone battle.")

Those financial incentives aren't likely to go away, but Watson said that Comcast will make changes. "When the company has moments like these, we use them as an opportunity to get better, and that’s what we’re going to do," he wrote. "We will review our training programs, we will refresh our manager on coaching for quality, and we will take a look at our incentives to ensure we are rewarding employees for the right behaviors. We can, and will, do better."

Here is Watson's full memo: