How Comcast has me stuck in my own ‘Comfy Trap’

Steve Safran March 8th, 2007

BY STEVE SAFRAN
MANAGING EDITOR
LOST REMOTE
steviesaf@gmail.com
UPDATE: I have service back today. The fine folks at Comcast have, once again, fixed the problem. And, once again, I am mollified. They even escalated it so that a member of the management team saw to it that I was called before I had a chance to call in and whine some more. They have credited me for a full month. As ever, they are taking excellent care of me. So once again, I ask - am I still in the Comfy Trap? Is part of the Comfy Trap “I’ll give ‘em just one last chance, but this is it.” Is this the consumer version of Stockholm Syndrome? And where are Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba when I need them most?

I have Comcast at my home in a bedroom community outside Boston. I have it, in fact, in my bedroom. And I’m damn near close to kicking it out of bed, too. On Friday, Comcast and I will mark our fourth (maybe fifth, I’ve lost count) date together since I “upgraded” to Digital Voice. But that’s not my point. My point is that I’m an idiot.

I don’t quite know how to write this one. When Jarvis was going through Dell Hell, at least he could write about how awful Dell’s consumer relations were. He had a bad product, and his story had a pretty good foe – Dell made things worse by treating Jeff as the enemy. In my case, I have a bad product – Comcast Digital Voice. It has been awful. Ever since I switched to it late last year I’ve had nothing but problems. Ditto my neighbors and many other people I’ve spoken with in suburban Boston. It’s just that… Comcast people are so darn nice about it. What do you do when the people who give you a lousy product are so likable?

“You go elsewhere, dope,” is the obvious answer. Well, not so simple. Yes, Verizon has just moved into the market. They offer a competitive product to Comcast’s bundled voice-data-TV product. But truly – they just started a few months ago. And I’ve heard mixed reviews. So who wants to go from bad to, maybe, worse?

I’ve had Comcast most of my homeowner-adult life. Or whatever its various parent-company iterations were. I’ve had my share of problems – but they were always fixed. Comcast’s service was always pretty good on my end. Yeah – they got some bad press on YouTube. That video of the sleeping tech didn’t help. But you saw how they resolved that – a regional vice president called that family and apologized. THAT’s customer service.

The trouble in the Safran household started when we upgraded. Every LR reader in the audience is now laughing. Not because I’m funny but because you know the inherent comedy in that statement: once you upgrade, everything goes to hell. It happened with me and Vista. And it happened with my family and Comcast Digital Voice.

The Comcast folks touted their voice-over-the-internet product as a superior solution at a lower price. It’s their VoIP product. It saves us money. Also, it stinks. And once we “upgraded” the phone product, our cable and web connections suffered.

When the phone works, there’s (sometimes) a lag from the time we answer until the time the caller can hear us. So if you call me, the first time I say “Hello?” You don’t hear it. This leads to all kinds of comedy. “Hello?” I say. But you don’t hear that. So you pause, awkwardly. Then at the same time we say “Hello?” Then you and I say it separately, maybe a few more times together, and then… we start to weep.

This is quite an upgrade. Back in the old days, we’d have to talk with each other. I was doing a phone interview live on a radio station and the damn phone line suddenly made me sound like a robot. On live frickin’ radio. Yeah - cool and all, but still not the point one is trying to make when one is trying to seem like a professional know-it-all about technical things.

So it would be easy for me to rage against the machine here. But there’s the problem. The Comcast folks are so darned nice. The people you call are lovely. They sympathize. When they realize I’m something of a web guy, they talk to me in geek. “Hmmm, there’s lag on the ping of about 4,000 miliseconds,” they’ll say. “That sounds like a bit much,” I’ll say knowingly. Possibly with an unearned sense of smugness. And together, the Comcast tech and I will bond.

None of this fixes the awful phone connection. Or the on-again-off-again web connection. Or the in-and-out TV connection.

I even got the phone number of a Comcast exec my wife called to give an earful to. And again – dammit – the guy was lovely. “I know,” he said, “I’ll credit you.” He credits us. We’re validated. “Let’s work on this,” and suddenly we’re all partners.

Now, I may be a chimp, but I’m not a total chimp. On Friday, Comcast comes calling again. For some reason I’m even looking forward to their visit. Still, I have no reason to expect a different result. I mean – I’ll love the tech. Just like before, he’ll tell me about all the problems the other people in my neighborhood are having. He’ll tell me how one brand of the modems suck and he’ll replace it with a different brand even though he’s not supposed to. He’ll change some wiring, give a disapproving look at how the guy who did it before wired the box. And together we will resolve the matter.

Until he goes home. Then I’m stuck with this lousy product. And, what’s even worse is that once you switch to Comcast Digital Voice you can’t switch back.

It’s at this point you’re probably thinking “Wow, this is some anti-Comcast screed here!” But, believe it or not, that’s not what this is.

We’re consumers and we get trapped, a lot. We fall into traps of comfort. I could try Verizon (and indeed, if tomorrow’s tech call fails, Comcast really will give me no other choice) but I’m in a Comfy Trap. As consumers of information, how often does this happen? How often do we take the comfy way out? With so many choices being offered to us online, I still hear things like “that’s too many choices, I just can’t imagine having to choose from them all!”

Put me back in my Comfy Trap.

Traditional TV models rely on the Comfy Trap. They demand we sit there and watch commercials on their terms. And, for the most part, they win. There’s a place for that, too. The end game of all of this isn’t one commercial model. It’s hundreds. I’m willing to pay X for Y. The X is either time or currency. I will pay three minutes of “live” commercial time per break to watch Battlestar Galactica “live” OR I will pay $1.99 to download it from iTunes.

That’s breaking out of the Comfy Trap.

Networks going after people who upload clips to YouTube? Comfy Trappers. People who watch bad TV because there’s “nothing else good on?” In the CT. You get the idea. We, the consumers of information, still largely think the way that I do in the Comcast Problem: I don’t like the service I’m getting, but they’re so nice to me that I’ll stay in the bad relationship.

Starting Friday, I’m demanding an end to my Comfy Trap. You should, too.