Comcast Says New 'Customer Experience' VP Will Fix Everything

Comcast has never been a consumer favorite, showing up in last place or close to it in nearly every customer satisfaction survey out there for much of the last decade. There's a number of reasons for this, ranging from poor subcontractor hiring practices to an endless ocean of rate hikes of seemingly endless variety, but after a decade most sensible people conclude that Comcast really just doesn't want to spend the money to make sure their customer support is top shelf.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts emerges every six months and makes a promise to fix things , though it's always with a dismissive attitude. It's because we're so big that we see so many complaints, he'll say , as if every other major company has employees consistently making the news for falling asleep at customer homes murder , digging in the wrong yard , blowing up laptops dishwashers or homes -- or even animal cruelty

The latest seemingly bi-annual promise to fix their abysmal customer satisfaction ratings comes via Comcast Executive VP Neil Smit, who in a blog post informs us that Comcast has hired Charlie Herrin to be the company's new "Senior VP of Customer Experience." Herrin will, according to Smit, "reimagine the customer experience and ensure that we are delighting our customers at each touch point."

"(Our new executive will) reimagine the customer experience and ensure that we are delighting our customers at each touch point."

- Comcast

"Over the last few years, we’ve been incredibly focused on product innovation and delivering great content and technology experiences," insists Smit. "But this is only one half of the customer experience equation. The other half is operational excellence in how we deliver service. The way we interact with our customers – on the phone, online, in their homes – is as important to our success as the technology we provide."

In other words, Comcast has been so busy trying to get mega-mergers approved and find new ways to impose sneaky new fees on customer bills, that they've apparently forgotten to fix flagging customer support -- for a decade.

"Transformation isn’t going to happen overnight," states Smit. "In fact, it may take a few years before we can honestly say that a great customer experience is something we’re known for. But that is our goal and our number one priority � and that’s what we are going to do."

While Comcast's customer support has always been atrocious, it has received an immense amount of renewed public scrutiny in recent months as Comcast tries to sell regulators on their $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable. Whether it's winning the Consumerist Worst Company in America Award or being recorded simply refusing to let a customer cancel service, Comcast has been a public whipping boy for months now. With a few exceptions, it's usually for a good reason.

Can Herrin fix this and really "delight" customers? Only if Comcast's willing to spend significant amounts of money on new subcontractor screening, support rep and technician training, and a near-total overhaul of not only the way the company does business -- but the way executives think about consumers.