



I guarantee that Comcast learned a vital lesson this week. This week they learned that arrogant and badgering employees are not an asset to any business. In fact, they can be a PR nightmare. As a Call Center Employee and manager at a Fortune 500 for many years, I can assure you that most businesses the size of Comcast would never have tolerated or allowed badgering customers like this. I don't care if they want to cancel or not, there is a line you do not cross and boy Comcast, you blew it. I would even go so far as to say the majority of large or small businesses would not allow the kind of behavior that was recorded and has now been plastered all over the news.

In case you are not familiar, Ryan Block and his wife, current Comcast customers, wanted to cancel their service and had the unfortunate experience to speak with an arrogant and aggressive agent who refused to take no for an answer repeatedly. Initially the Comcast agent spoke with Mr. Blocks wife but after ten minutes of the agents badgering, Ryan Block got on the call. This time it was recorded. The agent harassed the customer, insisting on an answer as to why they were discontinuing service. When the customer decided not to provide an answer, the agent became enraged, insisting an answer be provided. What ever happened to the customer is always right? At this point I am almost embarrassed to say I am a Comcast customer.

If there ever was a time to appreciate the value of good customer service, that would be now. My guess and it's truly just a guess, is that the corporate culture at Comcast and in that cancellation department, was to keep the customer no matter what. And, I can almost guarantee that the agents receive an incentive to "keep" the customer from canceling.

There was a point in the call that Mr. Block, the customer thought he was being "punked". What other reason could there be for this over the top call?

Well Comcast, lets hope you learn from the mistakes here. In fact, I am glad to help you out. Here are some training suggestions for your call center staff and anyone who ever comes in contact with a customer.

1) The customer is always right. Not exactly but my goodness treat them like they are right. Have you ever heard of tact? Even when the customer is wrong, you find a careful way not to make the situation worse.

2) Cut your losses. You talked to the customer and clearly nothing you could do was going to change their mind. You offered an incentive to lower the cost, clearly that was not the issue. Continuing to berate the customer solves nothing.

3) Don't hire people who like to argue or always have to be right in a customer contact capacity. What you end with is exactly what you got.

4) Find more appropriate incentives for agents that don't create the need for this kind of behavior. Your agent was ready to fight to the death which pretty much means they either feel they have to do that to keep their job or they get paid significantly more when they keep the customers from canceling.

5) Realize you are not all that. Your agent was so insistent that nobody offers service as good as Comcast. Hate to tell you but that is not true as witnessed by the many repeated calls to my home and from engineering just to try to match up the sound to the picture. I mean how fun is it too watch the mouth moving at a different pace than the sound? I feel like every show is a foreign movie without the subtitles. I recently was in Orlando for a vacation and they had the same issue with Comcast. So truly, don't push it.

6) There is more to a good agent than a good phone voice. A good phone voice is ideal however you actually need an agent who actually cares about the customer. You must have missed that in the training or maybe you forgot to teach it. Something to work on for sure.

I am Lynette Henk, XO Brand Partner for XO Lifestyle Worldwide. Currently in a pre-launch phase with two highly successful women, Jeanette Brooks of Pure Delite and Xocai healthy chocolate fame and Chanda Zavari, molecular biologist, geneticist, and protege to two time Nobel Laureate Dr. Linus Pauling and new president Brad Stewart. Find out how you can quickly get promoted to Gold Executive during our pre-launch phase. If there ever was a time, it is now. Join me as a XO Brand Partner. I can be reached at (877) 208-8172 or message me.