Bob CollinsComcast is trying significant damage control today after a customer posted audio of his attempt to cancel Comcast’s Internet and cable service in his home.
Ryan Block, the former editor of Engadget and owner of a start-up he later sold to AOL, posted the last 8 minutes or so of his phone call with a Comcast rep. He did so after surveying his Twitter followers on whether he should. It doesn’t help the Comcast PR machine that he has 80,000 followers.
He writes:
This recording picks up roughly 10 minutes into the call, whereby she and I have already given a myriad of reasons and explanations as to why we are canceling (which is why I simply stopped answering the reps repeated question — it was clear the only sufficient answer was “Okay, please don’t disconnect our service after all.”).
Today, Comcast released a statement and apology:
We are very embarrassed by the way our employee spoke with Mr. Block and Ms. Belmont and are contacting them to personally apologize. The way in which our representative communicated with them is unacceptable and not consistent with how we train our customer service representatives. We are investigating this situation and will take quick action. While the overwhelming majority of our employees work very hard to do the right thing every day, we are using this very unfortunate experience to reinforce how important it is to always treat our customers with the utmost respect.
Block responded by asking the rep not be fired. The problem is deeper, he suggested.
.@comcast I hope the quick action you take is a thorough evaluation of your culture and policies, and not the termination of the rep.
— Ryan Block (@ryan) July 15, 2014
