In Thursday blog post titled "Your time is valuable; we don't want to waste it," Comcast customer service chief Charlie Herrin detailed a new service that will give customers alerts 30 minutes before a technician shows up.

Comcast reduced its four-hour technician arrival windows to two hours a few years ago, and it promises $20 credits or a free premium channel for three months if they arrive late. Comcast also promises to call customers before they arrive at their home. To make the alert process more efficient, Comcast developed a feature "that enables our customers to track our technicians' arrival in real time," Herrin wrote. "This new feature, which will be available for free through our MyAccount app, begins trialing outside Boston this week."

"This is how it works," he continued. "Customers with scheduled appointments will be alerted through our App when our technician is about 30 minutes away from arriving at their house, and will be able to track this technician’s progress on a map. We’re hoping this will prevent our customers from just needing to sit at home and wait. They can check the app from the office, or wherever they are, and head home when they see we’re on our way. If we are running late, which can happen if our tech gets tied up at someone else’s house, we will let folks know that too, and provide real-time status updates so they can plan accordingly."

Comcast's widely criticized customer service has come under even greater scrutiny than usual lately, amid Comcast's attempt to purchase Time Warner Cable and a flurry of subscribers recording awful customer service experiences. The American Customer Satisfaction Index found that Comcast and Time Warner Cable are the most hated companies in their industry, and regulators examining the merger have raised questions about the companies' "substandard customer service."

Comcast Executive VP David Cohen told senators in April that the company is "deeply disappointed as to where we are." Two months ago, Comcast gave Herrin the task of fixing what's broken, which he said would "take a few years." One of Herrin's first tasks was apologizing to customers after a days-long outage.