Pay Now Or Pay Later

Stuart Henshall is ranting about his experience with Comcast, one that other customers of there's have shared publicly or privately in the past. It's not far different from what caused the movie "Cable Guy" to become a great example of art imitating life. That's Comcast.

But Stuart has to take a moment and think about the implications of working from home vs. in an office location, and more importantly buying only the consumer grade "best efforts" service versus the more expensive business grade service that offers significant benefits, even to the work at home types.

I learned this a few years back with my service from Cox. I was using plain old DHCP and started to see issues with the number of devices I had behind the cable modem and the number of changes I was making. I wanted to switch to static, but the only way to do that was to go with the business plan. What a difference. Cox supports "me" better, and when there is an issue, within 4 hours usually. More importantly, I get real Cox people out to the house most of the time, not the subcontractors. I get real people inside the company who care, and can talk with senior level folks about why being a work at home type business person means a different grade of care.

Is it perfect? No. But it's a far cry better than being lumped in the mix of the consumers who pay less. By paying more we get the most important thing needed.

"Peace of Mind."

Stuart is right to vent. Comcast could have let him know they were doing work on his street. They have the traffic logs. They know he's a customer and they likely send him his bill by email as well as hard copy. But they didn't. And for that they get the negative publicity associated with it.

So in their case. Lack of communication hurts them too. Like I said in the headline. Pay Now or Pay Later.

Comments

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[Andy Abramson]

First off, Mr. Texas, the cost for business cable Internet is not 3-4 x the cost of residential service when you consider the downside.

Loss of work. Inconvenience of having to find another place to work. Travel to that location and the time associated with it.

On the other hand, a dedicated support contact, consistent response time, a more professional relationship all matters.

The same applies to mobile phone service. We switch from consumer to business reps for Verizon and AT&T and the quality of the relationship, the correction of billing errors and the elimination of billing related matters cleared up. Instead of waiting on hold, I leave a message and the person who is our account rep "fixes" the problem the first time.

The cable guys are in a war with the telco. Neither though can touch a real T1 in quality but as they roll out fiber they may. Having fiber in one house has shown me that a well run fiber plant and paying the price for it blows away a DSL line or a regular consumer grade cable modem, if you work at home.

Quality has a price, and if you're willing to pay for it, you will see the difference.

[AustinTX]

I'm struggling a bit to understand who your intended audience is for this blog entry (and others you've made on the same topic - it's a favorite of yours, isn't it?).

Surely you realize how unpersuasive it is to urge residential customers who have poor Internet service, and probably more negative experiences with Customer Service, to pay 3-4x more just to get a little respect, and the care they were promised!

As for those wealthy people who, frankly, enjoy paying much more for the same thing; they're already paying for business class service.

You seem to be saying that poor service is our own darn fault for not paying Comcast more money for their services. You also seem to be implying that if everyone paid more for their service, that Comcast's overall customer satisfaction would improve.

Bully! It seems unlikely that paying Comcast more money will really result in better service for more than a few people who successfully publicize their experiences. The problem isn't that Comcast's resources are stretched too thin, it's that they're playing a game of providing as little as possible to those who don't matter as much!