Olivier Lacan { thoughts }

First off, let me assert the fact that I’m not a bit­ter per­son. I’ve had my share of DSL issues in Paris (France) with an ISP (NOOS, now Numer­i­ca­ble) which makes Com­cast look like a gen­tle baby seal in com­par­i­son. A con­nec­tion prob­lem on NOOS meant 0.5kb/s down­load speed for a month with no other solu­tion than wait­ing for them to repair the net­work node. And of course, no com­pen­sa­tion offered for the absence of ser­vice dur­ing a month.

That, was ISP hell.

Com­cast, most of the time is only a mediocre ISP. Their web­site is less unbe­liev­ably messy (infor­ma­tion archi­tec­ture being the key issue) than BrightHouse’s but still remains a cry­ing shame for a com­pany that is one of the key play­ers on the inter­net. As one of my friends recently put it when I had a con­ver­sa­tion with him about ISP hav­ing con­fus­ing web­sites: “You wouldn’t be on the Inter­net if it weren’t from them, and they can’t even get it right.”

Pre­cisely. If you excuse the web designer lingo, Comcast’s home page sports a hybrid design with nested table ele­ments and nasty spell of DIVi­tis. It doesn’t even come close to val­i­date against the W3C stan­dards (254 Errors, 8 warn­ings). Let’s not even talk about acces­si­bil­ity, why would the hand­i­capped need the internet?

But let’s leave that alone, and just imag­ine that your modem has a con­nec­tiv­ity issue. In my case, slow speeds (100kb/s tops) and recur­ring dis­con­nec­tions for no appar­ent rea­son. No major down­load, no ongo­ing bit tor­rent activ­ity. Now push that sce­nario a lit­tle fur­ther: boom, no more con­nec­tion. Modem dead. How do you reach sup­port? Well you call them. Assum­ing you had the num­ber jot­ted down some­where. Which I guess is what you do when you’ve been a Com­cast user a long time — I haven’t.

So using what­ever way you can — shout­ing in the street, going geek-hunting or… steal­ing your neighbor’s wifi — you fig­ure out the num­ber is 1–800-COMCAST or 1–800-266‑2278. You pro­ceed to call.

- Hello this is Michael Jor­dan.
– And this is Ben Stein, wel­come to Comcast!

What. the. fuck?!
Yes I under­stand the need to asso­ciate your com­pany with lik­able pub­lic fig­ure to appease your cus­tomers and bring them warm and fuzzy recolec­tions of Michael Jor­dan dunk­ing a ball after an very improb­a­bly long jump. But Ben Stein? Really?! This anti-science cre­ation­ist loon? Well sure, if polar­iz­ing your cus­tomers with ran­dom unre­lated celebri­ties is how you like to set them up for cus­tomer support.

After a few min­utes of nav­i­gat­ing the hotline’s menus I finally find the one ded­i­cated to tech­ni­cal sup­port for an inter­net line (isn’t it your num­ber 1 sup­port issue? Why isn’t that the first thing the cus­tomer is offered?). I press what­ever but­ton I was asked to press to be put on hold until the next avail­able representative.

Except that, appar­ently, between the hun­dreds — I hope thou­sands — of cus­tomer sup­port peo­ple Com­cast has on its pay­roll there is sim­ply not a sin­gle one that will be able to answer my call right now. None? Really? Do you just mean the wait­ing time is so long, that the sys­tem was designed to become self-conscious after more than 20 min­utes of wait become necessary?

Of course I’ve seen this before, in France the very relaxed voice usu­ally tells you that this is due to the high vol­ume of calls and that a safe bet is to try again later on in the day, just in case the wait­ing line isn’t so embar­rass­ing any­more. What if the cus­tomer doesn’t want to call again? What if this is a work-related emer­gency from some­one who works at home on the inter­net and has a deadline?

In dis­be­lief, I try to call again, same answer. After a few fum­ing min­utes, I decide to go back to Comcast’s dreaded home page and look for inter­net chat sup­port. I’ve tried it a cou­ple of times on other ser­vices and one clear advan­tage is the lack of uplift­ing wait­ing music. And for transparency’s sake, here’s what hap­pened next. Let me be clear, you shouldn’t read this, as much as I shouldn’t have had to read it being slowly typed into my browser. But if you do read it, con­sider the time my “sup­port expe­ri­ence” took.

Live­As­sist Tran­script
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chat id : 3c8408a9-255d-48e5-83a5-3cba34fd5f59
Prob­lem : Slow con­nec­tion, con­stant dis­con­nec­tions on the com­cast modem. Not a router prob­lem, was test with 2 dif­fer­ent routers with same results

Olivier > Slow con­nec­tion, con­stant dis­con­nec­tions on the com­cast modem. Not a router prob­lem, was test with 2 dif­fer­ent routers with same results

Loren > Hello Olivier, Thank you for con­tact­ing Com­cast Live Chat Sup­port. My name is Loren. Please give me one moment to review your infor­ma­tion.

Loren > Please wait, while the prob­lem is esca­lated to another ana­lyst

Gre­gory > Hello Olivier, Thank you for con­tact­ing Com­cast Live Chat Sup­port. My name is Gre­gory. Please give me one moment to review your infor­ma­tion.

Olivier > Hello

Gre­gory > How’s it going today Olivier?

Olivier > Could be bet­ter

Olivier > I’d like to know if there are known net­work issues in my area or if my modem could be at cause

Olivier > Com­cast plan is under my landlord’s name, [redacted]

Olivier > Her phone is [redacted]

Gre­gory > Just one moment please.

Olivier > sure

Olivier > Hello?

Gre­gory > I can help you with that, can you hold for one moment while I process your infor­ma­tion?

Gre­gory > Try­ing to pull up your account infor­ma­tion.

Olivier > ok

Gre­gory > Let me run a health check on your modem for you.

Olivier > Ok

Olivier > just so you know, I’m con­nected to my neighbor’s wifi right now

Gre­gory > I see what the issue is Olivier.

Gre­gory > Let me get you directed to the cor­rect depart­ment.

Olivier > and the issue would be?

Gre­gory > Just one moment please.

Gre­gory > Please wait, while the prob­lem is esca­lated to another ana­lyst

Olivier > alright

Andres > I am more than glad to assist you today with your order. It will take me just a few min­utes to pull up your account in our ystem. I will let you know if I have any ques­tions.

Olivier > Andres, here’s hop­ing you’ll be more talk­a­tive than Gre­gory

Andres > How are you today Mr.Lacan?

Olivier > I could be bet­ter.

Olivier > How are you?

Andres > How are you today Mr.Lacan?

Andres > I am doing great! Thank you for ask­ing me! Sure I will assit you today Mr.Lacan.

Olivier > Ok

Olivier > Gre­gory appar­ently found what was the issue with my modem. At least that’s what I gather

Olivier > Could you please enlighten me?

Andres > So you are hav­ing prob­lems with your inter­net Mr.Lacan?

Olivier > yes

Olivier > dis­con­nec­tions, reg­u­larly. Slow speed, for a few days/weeks now.

Olivier > The web being my work, it’s crip­pling.

Andres > Mr.Lacan I apol­o­gize for the incon­ve­nient but my area is not trou­bleshoot­ing. I rec­om­mend you to call to 1–800-Comcast and they will put you with a tech­ni­cian and he will help you.

Olivier > I did

Olivier > And they redi­rected me to Comcast.net

Olivier > which is not a sup­port site.

Olivier > The phone num­ber is appar­ently over­loaded. So I sug­gest you maybe do what two of your col­leagues did before you: trans­fer me to some­one who can (hope­fully) chat and trou­bleshoot.

Andres > Ok Mr.Lacan I will trans­fer you to another agent. I apol­o­gize for the incon­ve­nient.

Olivier > Thank you

Andres > Have a nice day.

Andres > Please wait, while the prob­lem is esca­lated to another analyst

Michael > hello

Olivier > Michael! So glad to meet you.

Olivier > Do you do trou­bleshoot­ing?

Michael > Please wait, while the prob­lem is esca­lated to another analyst

June > ikThank you for vis­it­ing Comcast.com. What ques­tions can I answer for you?

Olivier > Hello, June.

Olivier > Can you trou­bleshoot?

Olivier > Or do I need to be intro­duced to my fifth ana­lyst?

June > I do apol­o­gize, Olivier.

Olivier > Thank you.

June > As what I read in the pre­vi­ous chat tran­script, your issue is regard­ing your modem.

June > Is that cor­rect?

Olivier > Yes.

June > Thank you for ver­i­fy­ing.

June > You have been routed to a Sales depart­ment.

Olivier > Ah.

June > Let me con­nect you to our tech­ni­cal depart­ment.

June > Will this be fine with you?

Olivier > That’d be great.

June > Thank you for under­stand­ing.

Olivier > All I can do.

June > Please wait, while the prob­lem is esca­lated to another analyst

Susana > I am pleased to assist you today, how are you?

Olivier > I’m doing some­what less good than 5 ana­lysts ago. But thank you, how are you?

Susana > I def­i­nitely under­stand how incon­ve­nient it must be in your part. Let me do every­thing to get this issue resolved for you within this chat smile

Susana > I am doing great.

Susana > Since when did this issue hap­pen, Olivier?

Olivier > I’d say a few days if not weeks.

Olivier > But it did hap­pen before.

Susana > Are the wirings secure and is every­thing plugged cor­rectly?

Olivier > Yes, eth­er­net cables have been checked.

Olivier > And I’ve used two dif­fer­ent routers to test the WiFi reception/Ethernet rout­ing

Olivier > The coax cable going to the modem is also secure.

Susana > I will now run a series of diag­nos­tics to check on the sta­tus of your con­nec­tion and devices from my end.

Olivier > Ok.

Olivier > Oops, clicked the wrong but­ton.

Olivier > Can you still see me?

Susana > Yes I can still see you

Olivier > Ok.

Susana > There indeed is a slight prob­lem detected with your con­nec­tion. How­ever, do not worry as this is noth­ing that I can­not fix remotely on my end. Can you please hold for a few min­utes while I per­form the nec­es­sary trou­bleshoot­ing steps from my end?

Olivier > Of course.

Susana > Thank you for your patience.

Susana > Done. Now let me run a final health check to val­i­date that the sig­nals have improved before we end the ses­sion.

Olivier > Great.

Olivier > Was it a firmware problen on the modem end?

Olivier > In case you didn’t see my mes­sage: Was it a firmware problen on the modem end?

Susana > Firmware prob­lems only occur with routers, Olivier.

Susana > The rea­son for this is just a sys­tem glitch from our end. How­ever it is now improved.

Olivier > Ok, great.

Susana > Great news, I just retrieved the results of the final health check and it is show­ing that the con­nec­tion has improved with a more sta­ble and higher speed. All sig­nals are in green, the sys­tem has been refreshed and prop­erly con­fig­ured.

Susana > Now all you need for the changes to fully take effect on your end is to pow­er­cy­cle your modem cor­rectly as out­lined on this link: http://lite.help.comcast.net/content/faq/guid/e1b0fbaa-ebee-4553-a55d-d529dab07e09#power

Olivier > Thank you for your help.

Susana > You’re wel­come. I can’t be more glad know­ing that your sat­is­fac­tion is guar­an­teed.

Susana > Is there any­thing else that I can resolve for you aside from this?

Olivier > Who should I con­tact if any­thing sim­i­lar hap­pens?

Susana > Since you are now online, you may want to watch videos for free as a com­cast sub­scriber at www.fancast.com.

Susana > Please con­tact your local office at 1800 266 2278 for a modem replace­ment if same issue occurs.

Susana > How­ever I doubt that.

Olivier > Ok,

Susana > It should be good to go

Olivier > Thanks again.

Susana > After this chat ses­sion, there may be a quick 3-question sur­vey that will pop up. It would really mean a lot to me if you con­sider this issue resolved. Are you okay with that?

Olivier > A sug­ges­tion

Olivier > Yes, the issue seems resolved so far

Olivier > Quick sug­ges­tion, if it mat­ters. Who­ever cre­ated this chat sys­tem might want to have the lines wrap­ping inside the win­dow, so users don’t need to scroll hor­i­zon­tally every time the ana­lyst says some­thing to see it.

Susana > It is, I assure you

Susana > Thank you very much for the sug­ges­tion. I will make sure it is passed

Susana > smile

Olivier > Good.

Susana > Thank you very much Olivier, please click on the END SESSION but­ton to answer the sur­vey as the issue has been resolved smile

Olivier > Good night.

Olivier > Alright, thanks for being the most effi­cient per­son I met today.

Susana > Ana­lyst has closed chat and left the room

As you can see I jumped a line in the tran­script every time I was “esca­lated” to another “ana­lyst”. Five times, 5, Cinq, or rather five fuck­ing times where it wasn’t the ana­lysts but I who had to even­tu­ally fig­ure out if they were the com­pe­tent per­son to solve my prob­lem despite them already hav­ing read a tran­script of my prob­lem descrip­tion. Or maybe this is part of the prob­lem, maybe being “esca­lated” sim­ply means that what­ever ana­lyst came before sim­ply dumped me onto a new one with lit­tle to no infor­ma­tion about my issue. That would cer­tainly explain the few min­utes of niceties before they real­ized that — oh, wait — the couldn’t help me. But they sure all stuck to the script when it came to the niceties.

A lit­tle ques­tion for their man­agers. Would you rather some­one be cour­te­ous and waste 5 min­utes of your time in a slow inter­net chat back and forth and this for 5 con­sec­u­tive instances, or would you per­haps like to get on with the fuck­ing prob­lem already and assume I am not hav­ing a great day, or else why would any­one spend it talk­ing to cus­tomer support?

So, skip the “How are you?”, and don’t dare tell me “How can I help you?” after I described it at length with:
– your online sup­port chat form
– the first “ana­lyst“
– the sec­ond “ana­lyst“
– the third “ana­lyst“
– and the fourth “analyst”

“Nice to meet your Mr. Smith, I am look­ing into the cause of the prob­lem you described to us and will come back to you shortly with more infor­ma­tion”.
Take it, it’s free. That’s all you need. That’s how you engage a cus­tomer by mak­ing him under­stand that what­ever action he first took to describe his prob­lem prop­erly in the hopes of mak­ing his support’s job eas­ier wasn’t com­pletly wasted. Addi­tion­ally it sets him up for the unavoid­able wait while a tech­ni­cian (not an ana­lyst, ana­lysts work at the CIA, or on Wall Street) runs a series of tests (phys­i­cal or log­i­cal) to nar­row down the cause of the prob­lem. Of the five peo­ple the peo­ple I talked to, only two (June and Susana) referred to my pre­vi­ous chats and seemed to at least have glanced over my pre­vi­ous descrip­tions of my problem.

By read­ing the end­ing of my dis­cus­sion with the very nice Susana, you would assume that my prob­lem was thor­oughly resolved, right?
Nope. After care­ful test­ing — which I couldn’t do or didn’t think to do after I was told that every­thing was “green” — I real­ized that my band­width was still nowhere close to the 6mpbs I could reach only two weeks prior. And my very strange down­load speed con­tin­ued.
It would go up to 300kb/s then sharply drop to 150, and finally oscil­late between 80kb/s and 110kb/s.

So I called again, this time I scored some­one on the phone. Lucky me!
I had a friend’s DOCSIS 2.0 Motorola modem with me to test and see if the prob­lem wasn’t related to the rental Com­cast modem. After a few long min­utes of tweek­ing, the Motorala modem was func­tion­ing prop­erly, with no a drop more band­width. The prob­lem was evi­dently net­work related.

Still the per­son I talked to on the phone insisted it might be due to the house’s wiring. So she asked me if I would like to have a tech­ni­cian come by and check the house. I was reluc­tant, since it was Fri­day, and it would surely mean some­time dur­ing the week, when I’m usu­ally very busy. But to my sur­prise, she offered Sun­day, between 4 and 7pm. I was amazed, you could never dig out a tech­ni­cian on a Sun­day in France. No they would rather work dur­ing the nor­mal week, when peo­ple are at work and can’t answer the door. Or bet­ter yet, have them take half a day off — so that it fits the Inter­net technician’s schedule.

The man was very nice, he checked the modem, saw my friend’s Motorola and told me it was much bet­ter than the default one and that a DOCSIS 3.0 wouldn’t make much of a dif­fer­ence now, but that the new faster speed was being rolled out soon enough. Less than a year he made it sound like. Then he checked the coax­ial lines inside the house and found some noise on the upstream. He seemed to have an eureka moment about this, but I could hardly see why a slight loss of upstream could be caus­ing a 80% loss of band­width. He went to the attic and fixed the upstream noise issue. Which made me very hope­ful. We tested the band­width: no change. He went out­side to the check the con­nec­tion with the node, and came back empty handed. He told me he would have a col­league come by the next day to check the net­work in the area.

This was the last I heard of Comcast.

Today I sub­scribed to AT&T’s U-verse. Not because it’s cheaper: it isn’t. On the con­trary AT&T is far too expen­sive. The equiv­a­lent of the com­plete U-verse bun­dle (Free­box) retails in France at $45 per month, with the high­est speed by default. I chose them sim­ply because their web­site is orga­nized, offers actual infor­ma­tion about the ser­vices pro­vided and most of all, because their band­width poli­cies aren’t reminscent of the late 1990’s.

Of course the com­par­i­son is unfair, I haven’t yet had any sup­port issues with AT&T, but that shouldn’t be Comcast’s prob­lem. What should be Comcast’s prob­lem, and what will be its down­fall in the fol­low­ing months, is that a com­peti­tor as expen­sive as AT&T could com­pare so favorably.

To the Com­cast exec­u­tive who will in the fol­low­ing month strug­gle to under­stand the mas­sive loss in cus­tomers they will likey suf­fer, I can only point to Jeff Jarvis’ excel­lent book “What Would Google Do”. The title is deceiv­ing, it’s not just about Google. In it lies the answer to why the likes of AOL and Yahoo faded away in favor of com­pa­nies who didn’t try to pro­vide con­tent — which is funny since Com­cast is appar­ently try­ing to acquire Dis­ney as an attempt not to be seen as a “dumb tube” — but instead good ser­vice to as many cus­tomers as pos­si­ble for the low­est mar­gin possible.

If that still doesn’t con­vince you, look up Free’s suc­cess story. The French ISP who started as a free alter­na­tive to France’s national oper­a­tor France Tele­com before lead­ing the way in the DSL rev­o­lu­tion and chang­ing the way tele­coms work in the coun­try. Which lead to France becom­ing one of the best and most com­pet­i­tive Inter­net mar­kets in the world, can­cel­ing a 10-year lag in national Inter­net usage.

Posted on Dimanche, novembre 22nd, 2009 at 4:28 . Filed under Serious Stuff. Follow responses to this entry with the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.