I usually find people who give the lowest possible score to a company to be annoying and suspicious ... probably just competition trying to steal customers away from a business. But the fact is that I'm giving Comcast 1 star only because there's no way to give it zero stars. They have been a total nightmare. We've been trying to get our cable/internet/phone service since March, and FIVE MONTHS LATER, they STILL haven't done a single thing right, and we STILL don't have service to the cottage in the back. They even accidentally changed our phone number, which we have had for almost 20 years, and they couldn't correct the error for almost 3 weeks. It's a lucky thing we were able to get our number back and it wasn't assigned to someone else.
The problems we've had with them are so numerous that I really can't get into all of it. It's been practically a part-time job dealing with them. Orders not placed when they were supposed to, orders placed and then mysteriously cancelled by their system, appointments missed over and over again, equipment not being sent, techs coming out and not doing the work they were supposed to for one reason or another, conflicting messages being given by different agents ... the list goes on and on and on and on and on ... you get the idea. The only reason we've even bothered continuing to try to make this happen is because our internet connection with AT&T was so slow that it very often had trouble loading a standard, no-frills web page. The service with Comcast isn't lightning fast or anything like that (even though we have the fastest service they provide), but it is what you expect from an ISP. If we had any other realistic options available, though, I can tell you for a fact that we would NOT willingly give Comcast our business.
So, after 5 MONTHS of working with these idiots on a weekly basis, here's my advice to you on the best way to handle things:
(1) WORK ONLY VIA CHAT ... because, with this company, one agent will tell you one thing and another agent will tell you the exact opposite, and they don't seem to keep any records of what you've called in about or what they've said or promised to their customers. Even confirmation #s don't mean anything. I've called in to ask about a standing order and given a confirmation #, and they've claimed not to have it in their system. This may be because they are using at least 2 different systems (I was recently trying to get stuff done via a chat window and the agent I was chatting with couldn't find me on the system as an authorized person on the account. Despite the fact that I'm the only fluent English speaker in my household and I'm the one who had been handling ALL account matters for the months we've been trying to get this mess straightened out. With the chat window open, I CALLED in and talked to another agent, Joe, who said yes absolutely, I was right there on the first screen. When I relayed this information to the guy I was chatting with, the chat agent kept giving me the run around. Joe asked me to ask him which system he was using, and the chat agent responded that he couldn't tell me about the technology the company uses. He also couldn't give me his agent ID number, he insisted, even though Joe gave me his with no problem whatsoever), but this really shouldn't be the customer's problem, should it???
Their chat software lets you print a transcript of the chat for your records. The transcript shows the chat session ID #. In theory, someone somewhere in corporate should be able to pull up a record of the chat by the ID number, but really, I don't trust a single thing that comes from this company, so I also PDF the chats and keep them. I imagine that a class-action law suit is not far off, and I want to have documentation of the insanity this company has put me through.
(2) Be really polite and ask as if there's nothing wrong ... BUT GET THE AGENT'S OPERATOR ID UPFRONT. If they're not willing to give it to you before there's anything wrong, they're certainly not going to give it to you after. Their agents seem to be trained differently, and some will give it to you and others won't (you really have to wonder about a company that would train their agents to NOT give out their agent ID number). If you ask upfront, you won't waste your time on a call that you won't be able to document later. If they don't give you their ID, "hang up" and try again until you get an agent that does.
(3) DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. I'd like to figure out a way to record my calls for those occasions where I have to call in, but at the very least I record date/time of calls, name of whom I spoke to, and what we talked about. I try to get agent IDs and confirmation #s for EVERYTHING, and if I didn't get a confirmation #, I assume nothing is going to happen, since it doesn't always happen even when I *DO* have them.
And best of luck to you. You're going to need it if you have no choice but to go with Comcast. Trust me. read more