Comcast lives out its digital media relationships

After my slight tirade Tuesday night and a whole 'lotta back and forth on Twitter with ComcastCares, I popped into bed crossing my fingers that something would come from all of it. The next morning I got a call from Rebecca at Customer Service who I just called back today. She was extremely forthcoming and kind, empathized with my frustration, and gave me 50% off my bill for the month when I asked. Heck of a lot better than the woman who reluctantly offered me a pay-per-view coupon. Shortly after she called yesterday I also got a call from George, who will be coming out on Saturday to get things fixed up. Pleased by the follow-through.

So the question remains. Are they making changes in their traditional communication lines or did I only get a call from the team dedicated to social/digital media? I would love to see Comcast take this online so as to avoid sitting on hold completely, and while I did try to do a live chat, it did not prove as easily as I had hoped it would be. I gotta say though, I won't be calling Comcast if I can help it. I'll be tweeting.

A quick note on treating your consumers with respect

Though this ties into a larger topic I'd like to discuss another time about meaningful brand communication, I noticed a strange instance of a brand missing the mark with their consumers.

Today I called Comcast for the 5th time in 2 weeks because my On Demand wasn't working. Again. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. But I immediately explained my frustration at having gone through this so many times and that "On Demand" doesn't really count if it's "On Demand in an hour after you call us and we send signals and you unplug your box and lose all the channel information." Ok, end rant. I am just surprised and disappointed that there's validity to everyone hating Comcast. 

Anyhow, the calls always included a fair bit of hold time, and today after I got a rep, I ended up on hold for another 20 minutes. Not a big deal because all I had to do tonight was clean, but as soon as they put me on hold, I got a message saying something to the effect of "Want to pay less for your home phone line? (Insert here a hard sell for Comcast Digital Voice) Ask your customer representative today!" Ok, I understand using a phone call as an opportunity to sell, seeing as people use that same line to set up new accounts, change accounts, etc. But for those of us who were calling because the service is consistently failing, the hard sell is sure to bring a grimace. Because it came after my specific choices of equipment or service not working for my cable account, I expected them to be a bit more humble and not use the fact that I'm frustrated on hold as an opportunity to get me to invest more in Comcast.

On the flip side, I reached out to ComcastCares on Twitter and got an immediate response, and he realized I needed a technician, not to just unplug and replug my box. He then went on to set up an appointment for me. 

That's how you do it, folks. Not hard-selling me when I'm stuck wasting my minutes on hold with you. 

EDIT: I got a call this morning from Comcast saying that they had seen my blog and that they'd like me to give them a call. Why is it that Comcast is doing GREAT on the digital media front but not in their traditional infrastructure??

A New Communications Model- Consumers are Changing the Conversation

In September I attended the Deepspace presentation on Modern Brand Building, where I heard from Paul Isakson, Adrian Ho, and Dion Hughes. During the presentations they each presented a number of different metaphors for brands and brand communications. But during the presentation a different idea came to me--a revised communication model, to reflect the way consumers communicate in this media environment.

I realized that oftentimes, we assume that the consumer is going to give us--the senders--feedback, when instead they're much more likely to share their thoughts with others, both good and bad. 

(Red lines are the traditional way, blue lines replace the bottom red line--these blue lines of communications result in WOM, blogging, Twitter posts, Facebook fan pages, etc)

Windo recently made mention here of these conversations, calling them "me-casting." He noted that these communicators may be influencers if brands come check out what these consumers are saying, but that's just the thing. I think that brands need to make an effort to seek out these opinions, and not just by giving them a place to share them. They're striking up these conversations with their friends, their peers, their co-workers and family. Comcast actually figured this one out and opened their ComcastCares Twitter account. I've personally benefitted from it and think it's pretty kickass.

Like I've said, I typically don't like brand metaphors and limiting models like these, but I think this added friction point needs to be added to the conversation around communication.