Mona Shaw drew instant fame last year after literally lowering the boom on her local Comcast office in Manassas, Va.
The 75-year-old Shaw reportedly was upset that Comcast had arrived two days late to install service, didn’t complete the job, cut off her service and then left her lingering in a customer-service waiting area for hours before telling her that the manager had left for the day.
She came back later with a hammer, bashing a customer-service representative’s phone and computer keyboard.
Low customer-service marks and disgruntled customers such as the “Hammer Lady” have helped prompt the cable TV giant to invest millions of dollars into mending its ways.
Today, Comcast promises to resolve problems faster and get its service people to a customer’s door within a two-hour appointment window.
“The whole approach is that we’re trying to be more responsive in a shorter period of time,” said Comcast Colorado spokeswoman Cindy Parsons. “We want to listen to customers.”
Something must be working: Media critic Bob Garfield, founder of ComcastMustDie.com, has softened his tone and is morphing his year-old site into a more general consumer-oriented venture.
Garfield still chastises Comcast as a “greedy, blundering corporate colossus,” but gives it credit for no longer being “tone deaf.”
“The company has heard our angry voices and taken concrete steps in the process of putting customers first,” he wrote on his Web site.
Comcast’s effort to focus on customers has been exemplified in a number of ways over the past year or so.
A seven-person team was formed at Comcast’s corporate headquarters in Philadelphia to monitor blogs and Web sites such as BroadbandReports .com, where consumers are likely to complain about the company. Comcast staff attempt to locate the disgruntled customers and resolve their problems.
“In many cases, we engage the local (service representatives) to respond,” Parsons said.
Comcast also has improved its call-center system.
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