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emSparkly posted:I'm a phone bitch for a different ISP and I will tell you right now, never swear at us please. Yeah we get that you're pissed at stuff that's out of our control, but we're still the ones that have to hear it, and the CEO never will. Even when the recordings get reviewed, it's just another department of mules who compare our verbage to the script and grade it accordingly. Does your employer allow a way out of situations like this that doesn’t involve either the client accepting being ripped off or you being reprimanded? If so, what’s the magic phrase that lets that happen? The most frustrating part of this recent Xfinity experience for me was that the whole thing seemed to be set up to weaponize my empathy for the people on the other end of the line. Every time I showed consideration and respect it was actively exploited by the script to keep me in the sales funnel. It was especially weird. It felt bad. I wish I could have found a way out of the funnel that didn’t involve violently derailing it and likely causing someone to get a write-up. TrashMammal fucked around with this message at 12:31 on Nov 27, 2022 |
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Nov 27, 2022 12:22
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Xfinity asked me to take a survey about their lovely, horrible phone system, so I left a giga extremely profanity laced tirade after having to deal with the shittiest, most labyrinthine phone tree for an hour. The manager of the local branch called me up meekly and tried to help. They asked if they could use my ranting message as an example for training sessions in the future. I said sure, go nuts, and suck mine too. So somewhere out there, people are being played my message that screams “THIS TRASH PHONE TREE SYSTEM IS THE BIGGEST PIECE OF DOG poo poo, I WANT TO TALK TO A loving HUMAN, XFINITY CAN SUCK MY rear end, IT TAKES 10 MINUTES TO GET THROUGH THIS poo poo…” etc etc and being asked what they should do if a customer leaves a message like that.
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Nov 27, 2022 12:42
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They literally have a call center in my town in Michigan and I personally know people who work there. They aren't the people that deal with billing poo poo, though.
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Nov 27, 2022 12:50
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Toxic Mental posted:I left a giga extremely profanity laced tirade after having to deal with the shittiest, most labyrinthine phone tree for an hour. The amount of work the phone system does to try and juke you out of talking to an actual person to talk to is incredible. God help you if you ever need any help outside of "internet no work" or "me pay bill?".
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Nov 27, 2022 13:54
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When we moved, the new neighborhood had just gotten Optimum fiber (Altice? I dunno which is the parent company or whatever) They offered me $79.99 for gigabit fiber and made a big thing about how I'm locked into that price for as long as I subscribe and wouldn't you know it, 3 years later and my bill is still the same +/- $3 or so on taxes ISPs are evil but TBQH I have no personal complaints about the service I get
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Nov 27, 2022 14:20
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Dick Fontaine posted:Does your employer allow a way out of situations like this that doesn’t involve either the client accepting being ripped off or you being reprimanded? If so, what’s the magic phrase that lets that happen? Agreed that this is the worst part, the idea that the employee's bonus or pay or even their job is on the line because of something that you might say while trying to receive your service package. A simple "no" or a 4 instead of 5 stars on something not related to their spiel like audio quality could get them in trouble. Who the gently caress knows if they'll get reprimanded if they don't successfully sell me this package, they aren't allowed to tell me, if they send an SOS in morse code I'm sure telcom will catch their counter-op.
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Nov 27, 2022 14:24
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Xfinity’s gigabit service here is still something like 20mbit upstream which is laughable when I get full gigabit both ways with AT&T for about the same price ($60/mo).
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Nov 27, 2022 14:27
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olives black posted:also they're virtually a monopoly atp. whatever negative feedback you're giving is just being used as a cudgel to beat individual employees over the head. don't leave anything less than a five-star review unless your agent really loving sucked for reasons outside of the script that they force them to adhere to olives black posted:lol no they loving didn't Yes they did. This resulted in the Xfinity rebranding as well as a rollout of the NetPromoter rating system you’re talking about in the above quote there. They had literally no idea how bad it was and were totally blindsided. (Yes really) emSparkly posted:I'm a phone bitch for a different ISP and I will tell you right now, never swear at us please. Yeah we get that you're pissed at stuff that's out of our control, but we're still the ones that have to hear it, and the CEO never will. Even when the recordings get reviewed, it's just another department of mules who compare our verbage to the script and grade it accordingly. If you cuss at Comcast employees it gets placed in your permanent record in the form of a time series database. If you call Comcast 10 years later the first thing the tech will see is that you called someone a fuckdick on September 12, 2012. I’m not even kidding.
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Nov 27, 2022 14:38
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Internet Old One posted:If you cuss at Comcast employees it gets placed in your permanent record in the form of a time series database. If you call Comcast 10 years later the first thing the tech will see is that you called someone a fuckdick on September 12, 2012. I’m not even kidding. this appears to be a net-good agent-positive thing IMO. There should always be at least some acknowledgment that customers can be shitheads
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Nov 27, 2022 14:45
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Don't know about other ISP's but I assume definitely, Spectrum starts you out at introductory rate, which put me at around 150mbps for $40, but every year after the initial plan it goes up $20. After paying $80 for Internet and a stupid phone that only FOP's call and ask for money, my wife who works for a major CC, spent over 2 hours on the phone working these fuckers who kept pushing cable channels, Spectrum streaming service, keep the phone it's basically free. But after that time, we got a nice rep who set us up with Spectrum 400 and no phone for $45 a month.
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Nov 27, 2022 14:47
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Dick Fontaine posted:Finally I get high up enough in the chain for someone to hang up on me. This got me
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Nov 27, 2022 15:01
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Peggy Edson posted:lmao if you're stupid enough to rent a modem from the telco I did for a few months then they changed their policy and just gave it to me, *tens* of dollars saved SMART GUY
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Nov 27, 2022 15:03
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Back when I was on Comcast some ~5 years ago, my house regularly got warnings for suspicious upload activity. I would livestream, which was around 8 Mbps back then. Nowadays you can go up to like... 50 Mbps before YouTube gets mad at you (Twitch is still capped at 8). I wonder what kind of angry letters we'd get now. Not that streaming on Comcast ever actually worked or would work now. I had to pull my modem at least once a stream, it became a running gag.
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Nov 27, 2022 15:30
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kalel posted:this appears to be a net-good agent-positive thing IMO. There should always be at least some acknowledgment that customers can be shitheads Yeah but on the flip side Comcast could simply not suck as a place for low level employees and customers. They rolled out NPS to address their lack of insight but the guy who outsourced support to the lowest bidder on the planet surely kept an eye on what was going on and never said anything. He probably got a respectable boat sized bonus the year before they had to gut everything. He probably still has a nice office where he proudly displays some award he got for loving everything up so royally they had to rename a whole OU in shame. I had 2 comcast techs in my house and they were both very polite and concerned about their scores. I still had to have an electrician come in and redo my house properly and he had to spend a whole afternoon so I can’t see how they’re supposed to do a good job while competing with people who don’t. The only thing I can say is that they’re not much different than any other major corporation I’ve consulted for. If you look there’s always a department full of low level workers getting ground into grease for the machine and a bunch of ticketing queues and report systems in place so decision makers never have to see it happening.
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Nov 27, 2022 15:58
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Duct Tape Engineer posted:They literally have a call center in my town in Michigan and I personally know people who work there. They aren't the people that deal with billing poo poo, though. Fine, take it as hyperbole. My poo poo goes down all the loving time and I never get them.
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Nov 27, 2022 16:17
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My experience with Comcast re US-based support is that if you answer “no” to the “would you be willing to take a short survey after this call” then you get off-shore. If you answer yes to taking the survey you get a US rep.
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Nov 27, 2022 16:47
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Toxic Mental posted:Xfinity asked me to take a survey about their lovely, horrible phone system, so I left a giga extremely profanity laced tirade after having to deal with the shittiest, most labyrinthine phone tree for an hour.  Nice.Xfinity/comcast is such trash. I had to sign up for it again because the only alternative in my area is DSL which tops out at about 1 Mbps which is nowhere near enough for the age of video conferencing and multiple streaming devices. Ever since I signed up for Xfinity my phone has been getting spam calls. Weird coincidence I'm sure. Their sign-up pricing is deliberately setup to intimidate you into spending as much as you can afford. All the speeds they offer are "Up to X" so it's unclear what you will actually get, but GOD HELP YOU if you ever try to change plans. They will charge you a fixed $10/mo fee in addition to your regular rate in perpetuity. Meaning if you sign up for the cheapest $30/100 Mbps plan at and upgrade to the $35/200 Mbps later, you are paying $45/mo for 200 Mbps. It's all to scare you into paying more. I signed up for the deadass cheapest 100 Mbps plan and they upgraded me to 200 Mbps without charging me extra. In economics we call this practice "price discrimination." A company is selectively charging customers as much as they can afford to pay. Give us as much money as you can reasonably afford or else you'll be stuck with slow internet and unable to upgrade or cancel our lovely service. Xfinity also took 20 goddamn days to get their service installed in my area, and still had the audacity to bill me for the full month. gently caress Xfinity/comcast.
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Nov 27, 2022 17:04
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I tried to bring my att into my new house. Paying $80 for thee equivalent of 4 Mbps. Swap to Xfinity and book we are at a 600MB for the same price. Hate em but no other viable options other than paying ATT like 300 bucks for 200MBps
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Nov 27, 2022 17:40
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This is literally every conversation with the automated system. "Hi welcome to Xfinity. What can I help you with today?" "I need to speak with someone." "Okay. I can help you with that. Just tell me what the problem is." "No. I just want to talk to someone." "Okay. I can help you with that. Just tell me what the problem is." "No. I just want to talk to someone." "Okay. I can help you with that. Just tell me what the problem is." "No. I just want to talk to someone." "Okay. I can help you with that. Just tell me what the problem is." "No. I just want to talk to someone." "Okay. I can help you with that. Just tell me what the problem is." "JUST LET ME loving TALK TO SOMEONE YOU STUPID PIECE OF poo poo SYSTEM I DON'T THINK YOU'LL UNDERSTAND THAT THERE ARE EXPOSED UNDERGROUND WIRES YOU FUCKERS NEED TO COME AND FIX' IS IN YOUR LAUNDRY LIST OF STUPID PHRASES YOU ARE LISTENING FOR SO JUST GET SOMEONE ON THE loving LINE!" ... ... ... "We are connecting you to a customer service agent now." Works like magic. Beefed Owl fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Nov 28, 2022 |
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Nov 27, 2022 18:12
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Cumblast/Shitfinity/whatever they rebrand to in 5 years is a privately-held for-profit company that has a virtual monopoly in many areas. All of this will continue until they are seized and turned into a publicly owned utility.
olives black fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Nov 27, 2022 |
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Nov 27, 2022 18:25
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The solution to Comcast's hellish phone support is to never call them, but to text and have them call you. The secret phrase is "on it" The monopoly part will require competition or revolution tho
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Nov 27, 2022 18:36
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As far as I can tell, all the cable companies around me are colluding now. They used to have different plans and prices but now they are all the same. There are no deals. The agents are powerless to even work with you. Me: I don't want to pay a million dollars a month Them: what about $999,999. Me: No. Don't you want my money? If you don't give me a better price I'm just gonna pay for this small simple plan. Them: can't do it, all or nothing baby. Me: Supervisor. Themsupervisor: Say same thing And on and on. I just don't get why they don't want my money. gently caress the US and gently caress cable monopolies. Anti-consumer BS. I just want one loving cable channel. Just one. But I have to pay for 140 others for that one so I won't and just have internet for less than half the price of all the other poo poo.
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Nov 27, 2022 19:46
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olives black posted:Cumblast/Shitfinity 
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Nov 27, 2022 20:54
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Nov 27, 2022 21:01
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Cable monopolies blow, but it loving kills me when people call in and tell me "you've got a monopoly in this area and I would switch if I could." Dude, no. You live in a relatively well populated town in Ohio. Spectrum and Comcast would be more than eager to rip your rear end off. Go ahead. See how well they treat you. Waltzing Along posted:As far as I can tell, all the cable companies around me are colluding now. They used to have different plans and prices but now they are all the same. There are no deals. The agents are powerless to even work with you. 
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Nov 27, 2022 21:29
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emSparkly posted:Cable monopolies blow, but it loving kills me when people call in and tell me "you've got a monopoly in this area and I would switch if I could." 
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Nov 27, 2022 21:40
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I liked CenturyLink a lot. They had this weird vdsl thing that plugged into a phone line but since the fiber box was literally right outside my apartment I got incredible speeds for 30 a month
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Nov 28, 2022 00:03
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Believe me I would use CenturyLink in a heartbeat as I used to have them, paid a good price, no downtime on Internet but the place I moved to it is at best 20mbps in comparison to Xfinity's 1000mbps however I think they are installing new fiber optics in the area so hopefully I can tell Xfinity to shove it soon.
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Nov 28, 2022 00:19
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My Comcast stories; I was moving and saw a program they had to have your internet ready to go by your move date. I gave them a month or so notice of my move date and it took almost 2 weeks after I moved for them to get me hooked up. I was changing careers and hit some hard times and not much work. I knew I would no longer be able to afford the luxury of internet until a few paychecks came in as my savings were tapped so I canceled service. I was on autopay so I canceled that and told them I couldn't afford it for a month or 2, cancel it all. They proceeded to charge me another month and overdraft me and told me that canceling autopay could take up to 8-24 days to process. I told them a "who stole the cookie from the cookie jar story" and was quite irate. Not Comcast related but when I lived in Michigan the Midwest got billions of dollars of federal money to expand rural internet access, as far as I/others could tell nothing improved that decade and the companies just pocketed the money and shrugged. E: I have been using wow for years now and am quite happy with them (wide open west)
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Nov 28, 2022 20:36
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Yeah they really put you through the "harass a call center guy" gauntlet. Sorry OP. I know this rage well, and that point about weaponising your empathy is well-made. I also have Xfinity right now, but my apartment complex has some poo poo called Giga Monster or something equally ludicrous. I don't think I'd care much if my upload speed wasn't absolute dogshit, so I'll probably make the switch soon, but I'm loathing the hoops in advance.
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Nov 28, 2022 20:39
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My buddy and I got century link when we rented a house together, and the service was good but they had the worlds worst customer service. They kept charging us for some bundle that included dish, which we didn't want, so since he worked from home he would have to sit on the phone once a month and explain the whole thing to them for an hour or more. Hilariously, his job ended up getting some contract to do a bunch of review and re-training of CenturyLink's customer service since even the company had to admit how awful they were at it.
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Nov 28, 2022 20:51
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I worked in enterprise telecom back office for a smaller national carrier that was eaten up by Windstream between 2010 and 2015. The old carrier was known for our really good customer service along with a really positive employee-centric culture. Windstream’s culture is so unbelievably toxic that it pervaded the whole company almost overnight. Like I remember there was a large round of layoffs followed the next day by the CEO putting a blog post up on the intranet about how he struggled with the layoff decision during his loving vacation in France.
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Nov 28, 2022 22:28
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A Verizon rep once gave me a free recurring TB of data per month to my family plan that normally had 8GB for simply inquiring about the actual unlimited data plan but declining it That person fuckin rules and I took the survey Cumblast/Shitfinity can suck my greasy rear end in a top hat though
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Nov 28, 2022 22:47
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Smugworth posted:A Verizon rep once gave me a free recurring TB of data per month to my family plan that normally had 8GB for simply inquiring about the actual unlimited data plan but declining it a thing I love is when you make things extremely simple for them and they won't budge anyway, like when we switched from VZN to AT&T for cell plan and the verizon rep said "is there anything we can do to keep your business" and I said "drop our bill from $200 to $160, which is what AT&T is offering and literally the only reason we're switching" and he put me on hold and then a supervisor told me they couldn't do it a less fun thing is when despite being perfectly clear, they ignore you and plow ahead anyway, which is why I had to sit through several minutes of the supervisor offering other minor freebies and explaining how VZN's coverage is better and faster than AT&T, before I could successfully close the account
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Nov 28, 2022 23:40
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We're currently paying for Xfinity's superfast internet, which has a listed speed of up to 800 mbps. Speedtest says we're somewhere between 50-60 mbps. If I downgrade to a plan that's 200 mbps, do they just throttle the poo poo out of it or will I still be getting 50-60 mbps? I'm looking at other providers but nothing else is available at my address from what I can tell.
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Dec 15, 2022 18:03
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Dick Fontaine posted:
Yup, that's exactly what it's like dealing with anything Comcast/Xfinity. Several times I could barely ever get a chance to talk to a human, so I was surprised you were able to do that. So much time wasted.. Now I'm on Astound for a 1/4 the price with a 500mbps plan. 
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Dec 15, 2022 19:03
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I love Comcast Xfinity, love Comcast products and services!
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Dec 15, 2022 19:18
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ATT sent me an invite for home wireless internet from them, which I was a bit interested in because I didn't want to deal with Comcast. I assumed it was just going to be something small, like a hotspot inside the house or something. Nope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZYxp09kIBI It was so big that part of me was assuming it was going to act as a neighborhood wi-fi access point for anyone with ATT. edit: I"m not a rural customer, but apparently they killed DSL in my region and hadn't upgraded the area to Uverse. JediTalentAgent fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Dec 15, 2022 |
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Dec 15, 2022 19:58
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JediTalentAgent posted:ATT sent me an invite for home wireless internet from them, which I was a bit interested in because I didn't want to deal with Comcast. I assumed it was just going to be something small, like a hotspot inside the house or something. Nope. "....of at least 10mbps" Woah... slow down there cowboy. That is much too fast for my grandma to handle.
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Dec 15, 2022 20:04
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JediTalentAgent posted:ATT sent me an invite for home wireless internet from them, which I was a bit interested in because I didn't want to deal with Comcast. I assumed it was just going to be something small, like a hotspot inside the house or something. Nope. Fixed wireless needs line of sight and it’s slow as hell and since it’s piggybacking on the nearest cell tower you’re gonna get hosed even more during peak times. I guess if you’re out in the middle of nowhere without another option it’s better than nothing but don’t do it if you’ve got another option.
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Dec 15, 2022 20:18
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