Comcast

When I first started with Comcast, they bought out the local Adelphia cable system. Everything seemed fine, until recently.

Around 2009, things started to change dramatically. Customer assistance fell by the wayside when we no longer supported half the equipment that we provided subscribers (i.e., routers, gateway systems, and phone products). At the same time, the training for the job was getting less and less for any new products. It would get so bad that you would be asked by the customer how a certain new product worked, and it would be something that you hadn't even heard about. When training was offered, it was months after the fact and rushed, also to get a whole day's training into a 45-minute session.

Last year, my former tech support department was dissolved locally and moved to a different city, so I was offered to reskill to stay local or commute. I reskilled. The reskill training was no better. Anyone coming from the tech department to the retention department previously would go through a 6-week training program going over all types of things. We were given a week's training, and most of the time, it was making posters and different signs, not doing any real sales training or anything pertinent to the job.

After this, for about 2 months, I sat with a supervisor who did nothing to help me transition to this new position that I feel was forced on me.

All around me, people who know their job are being replaced by people who do not and are giving out false and incorrect information. Now I am being told that the new people off the street are getting the sales training that was denied to me and others.

Wouldn't it make sense to invest in your long-time employees since they know the products like the back of their hands?

My voice of the customer rating is consistently at or around 100%, and that means absolutely nothing now. No matter how happy customers are with me, if I don't sell them something else on top of what they have, then I get knocked down regardless.

If someone calls in now to lower their bill and you are able to keep the services they have and retain them as a customer, it still means nothing since you didn't up their bill with another service that they don't want.

Most people who get on my phone called a few days before and were charged something that they don't need or want to get a rep's commission higher, and then I have to remove it to keep a customer, or they will cancel. So at that point, my stats go down lower so I can maintain my own ethical morals to help someone.

I am currently looking for another place of employment so that I am not forced to undermine my own credibility by continually lying to the customer about not being able to help them save money when I see a lower price. Giving this to them means cutting my nose off.

To top it off, with my seniority at the company, my pay rate was cut down from around $18 to $12 so that I could stay local in a new department. Seniority here means next to nothing anymore since restructuring. The more sales you push, the more say you have, leaving me and others like me just wallowing in the shadows.

I have recently been told by the customer base that more and more they are calling up, getting outsourced agents answering phones. Some of which don't know what a state abbreviation is, like MN for Minnesota, not Mountain Region.

When bringing in people off the streets to train, don't just train them on selling; train on quality customer service as well.

When the outsourced or any other employee is misinforming customers of the products and services we offer, then it makes the job harder for the next rep. Since now it is an imposition to do our jobs, because we have to do the last rep's job again.

Also, when customers bring in equipment to the local office, make it easy for the local office personnel to close their account instead of calling in and another rep taking a hit to their stats, all because someone moved. It is not fair to the person taking the call.

There is no consistency throughout the company, as prices and service vary in different states and cities. If we are trying to create a consistent system, this needs to be addressed right away, since there are different policies and procedures for different areas. We are expected to know them and any changes that come down regularly to each area.

Oh, and stop being so greedy. We can provide a competitively priced internet service without gouging the customer for it, since it is on our own network. We do not use third-party systems, or so I'm told.

Prices keep going up, and customer service keeps going down. It doesn't take a genius to see what comes next.