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Comcast’s brilliant new way to retain subscribers: Refuse to let them cancel

There was no such thing as not being able to cancel.

There is such a thing as persistence, and apparently this CSR took it to heart that one should essentially browbeat the customer until such time as the customer relented.

I guess the customer in this case really did want to move away from Comcast. Personally, as a current subscriber to Xfinity Internet, since I happen to think that their Internet service is very good (no comment on their actual customer service), I would have worked with the CSR to give me a low-ball deal on current service or cancel it.

I've done the same thing with our DirecTV service and have gotten excellent deals from them over the years.
 
Reactions: whitewolf8214
This recording was from the former editor-in-chief of Engadget so my guess is that it's legit. I bet there is either an incentive for retention CSRs that can make a customer change their mind or a penalty for CSRs that cant.

After that much frustration most customers would hang up and cancel through a different method. It sounded like that CSR was trying to play the waiting game just to get the cancellation tied to someone besides himself. I can't imagine his end of call survey results being very good even if he is able to keep most cancellations off his name though.
 
I am glad they are hard to cancel, it has helped me to keep the price down, I call them up, say I am going to cancel and go to uverse or DirecTV ( and I would) and the deals come out, I just did it again because I was going to become a cord cutter because I have a HTPC that I use for XBMC.

Called and they said this is what they can do for me, $30.00 in credits for 24 months and a upgrade to premier ( all the movie channels with the Phone and Extreme 105 that I was already getting ) and a extra HD Box to go with the X1 I already had, all for the price for $131 a month for two years.

By the way when I left DirecTV to go to Comcast a few years ago, they were just as bad, took 15 min. to cancel and then the calls started and still get along with the letters.

Before that, when I canceled Dish to go to DirecTV, they said fine, you'll be sorry and you'll be back, no joke.


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It's one thing to make a couple retention offers the first couple times a customer asked to be disconnected, but this was different. This was a CSR who was trying to just argue until the customer hung up out of frustration so the cancellation wouldn't be tied to him.
 
Yep...I listened to the call on Howard Stern today.
What I can gather from this is the CSR was going off a script as well as a set of management's orders. Those orders may state "Do not allow the customer to cancel"....
I also would guess that call center employees are somehow 'punished' for each cancellation.
I state this based on past experience with a particular employer.
In that occupation, we were warned that customers who for whatever reason refused their scheduled service or decided to cancel their accounts, we were supposed to "save" the customer.
Failure to accomplish this would go on our record. Once a certain number of these were recorded, the next step was a written warning..
Totally unjust policy IMO.
 
I do not mind them trying to save a customer, but it goes to far once the customer has made it clear they want to cancel and get the job done.
 
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/...ast-Rep-Was-the-Rule-Not-the-Exception-129756

Reports coming in that this is the norm not the exception. They have aggressively oversell or lose their jobs.

 
http://www.dailytech.com/Comcast+Me...Calls+Actually+IS+Our+Policy/article36264.htm

Doing just what he was trained to do. Article about the internal Comcast memo.

 
Just amazing.


Posted Via The FREE SatelliteGuys Reader App using an iPhone.
 
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