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The Error of Bad Business
11 years ago
General
So I saw an article on Yahoo! about a man's horrid time dealing with Comcast to cancel his service. He recorded the conversation with the rep on the phone and posted it to his SoundCloud account and tweeted it publicly, causing an uproar and prompting Comcast to release a statement about the reps behavior and tactics, which is just another BS PR move that solves nothing and further shows their incompetence.
Here is the article - https://www.yahoo.com/tech/this-may.....851980684.html
So I decided to post a "comment" myself and this is what I ended up writing...
"Keep posting stories like this and it will get them to change their ways. If lawmakers won't do what is necessary to make these companies act like civil human beings and a respectable business, then the next best thing is the news, which cannot be bought (well not all of them anyway), and human outcry. These greedy, careless, pocket lining companies won't get away with it forever if stories of their horrible business practices get out to the public in any way, shape, or form that reaches millions of readers to see the truth behind the veil of their BS "friendly" commercials, ads, and PR campaigns. Lawmakers will be deemed unnecessary in this sense when Comcast and familiar cable companies go bankrupt and out of business due to poor customer relations.
In all actuality, cable/satellite providers in general better start making some severe changes with cheaper options and improved customer service, or they will all find themselves as extinct dinosaurs in the next decade. It has already been confirmed that many households these days, especially younger people, don't even have cable. Don't want it, don't need it. With the internet, they don't need to rely on greedy cable companies for media entertainment. With better companies such as Netflix and Hulu, between the two of them, you can get all your movie/tv show desires (including new, currently on air TV shows/movies) met for a little over $20 a month as compared to $60-120 a month with cable and satellite TV. The only thing missing is live sports really. Give that some time and someday a sports version of Netflix/Hulu will exist. Then what? An extra $10 or so bucks a month? Still way cheaper than handing your money over to these bastard companies. $30 a month give or take VS. $60-120 a month give or take...
I think it is clear to see why cable/satellite is starting to become less popular. You also don't need these companies for internet or phone services in most places. Plenty of other third party options for internet and phone. Besides that, landline phone services are the next to become extinct, probably faster than cable; for residentials anyway. They will always be a part of a business, but individuals themselves, most people have cell/smart phones now a days. The people I really feel bad for are the people who HAVE to put up with companies like Comcast because it is the only options in their areas. Luckily that is starting to change, slowly but surely. If the cable companies wish to stay in business and make profits without selling their souls to greed and poor business practices, they will need to completely revamp how they do things. One major ideal is to give people the channels they want, without all this "we can't do that, you have to buy the whole package" mumbo jumbo so they can charge you more. Just as they spoofed in an episode of South Park in the "Murder Porn" episode. Just give people the specific channels they want, charge a decent price for said channels, give good customer service, and if people wanna cancel, let them. It's not your business or concern to know WHY they want to cancel, they have clearly made up their mind that they want to cancel, and unless you give them a huge discount for continuing business (this happens seldomly actually) you aren't going to change their minds about cancelling, and will only serve to hinder what is inevitable, that they will cancel in some manner, regardless of the BS headaches and mind games you wish to cause.
Just a simple "We're sorry to hear that, but we hope you come back to us some day" will go a long way in possibly ensuring that they may come back some day... But all this greedy and hindering questioning and petty temporary refusals to cancel service will only ensure that they will not come back after leaving a sour taste in their mouth. It should be illegal to "refuse" to cancel someone's service like this. They pay you money for this service, they don't want to pay you money for said service anymore, it's their money, not yours, deal with it and cancel their service. Maybe if you weren't so desperate to keep your customers and their money due to failing cable sales, maybe you would make it easier on them eh? Oh but wait, in order to do that first, you'd have to improve service, but you don't wanna do that do you? Of course not... And cable companies wonder why more and more people live without cable these days. Other companies like Google and even video game consoles and so on are making it easier and easier to get entertainment from the net to your TV screen such as Netflix and Hulu that I mentioned earlier. Not to mention YouTube, and as I said earlier, give it time and a sports version of those will come about as well, rendering cable completely obsolete and useless to these modern times. If they don't change, they will get what's coming to them, trust me... It's only a matter of time. The reason good companies stay in business is because they are actually good. The reason bad companies that "appear" to be good stay in business so long is because of swindling. Sooner or later the swindlers will die out while the truly good ones thrive. Most of the time anyway. Some good companies die out for various reasons, but I think I made my point clear in this novel long post."
This can apply to any business practicing piss poor service and customer relations, but seeing as how it was relevant to cable/satellite TV providers, that is all I went into mainly.
It just sickens me how much bad companies prey upon people under the guise of being a good company, as I talked about in my comment.
What are some of your experiences with this and other issues revolving around business' poor service?
Here is the article - https://www.yahoo.com/tech/this-may.....851980684.html
So I decided to post a "comment" myself and this is what I ended up writing...
"Keep posting stories like this and it will get them to change their ways. If lawmakers won't do what is necessary to make these companies act like civil human beings and a respectable business, then the next best thing is the news, which cannot be bought (well not all of them anyway), and human outcry. These greedy, careless, pocket lining companies won't get away with it forever if stories of their horrible business practices get out to the public in any way, shape, or form that reaches millions of readers to see the truth behind the veil of their BS "friendly" commercials, ads, and PR campaigns. Lawmakers will be deemed unnecessary in this sense when Comcast and familiar cable companies go bankrupt and out of business due to poor customer relations.
In all actuality, cable/satellite providers in general better start making some severe changes with cheaper options and improved customer service, or they will all find themselves as extinct dinosaurs in the next decade. It has already been confirmed that many households these days, especially younger people, don't even have cable. Don't want it, don't need it. With the internet, they don't need to rely on greedy cable companies for media entertainment. With better companies such as Netflix and Hulu, between the two of them, you can get all your movie/tv show desires (including new, currently on air TV shows/movies) met for a little over $20 a month as compared to $60-120 a month with cable and satellite TV. The only thing missing is live sports really. Give that some time and someday a sports version of Netflix/Hulu will exist. Then what? An extra $10 or so bucks a month? Still way cheaper than handing your money over to these bastard companies. $30 a month give or take VS. $60-120 a month give or take...
I think it is clear to see why cable/satellite is starting to become less popular. You also don't need these companies for internet or phone services in most places. Plenty of other third party options for internet and phone. Besides that, landline phone services are the next to become extinct, probably faster than cable; for residentials anyway. They will always be a part of a business, but individuals themselves, most people have cell/smart phones now a days. The people I really feel bad for are the people who HAVE to put up with companies like Comcast because it is the only options in their areas. Luckily that is starting to change, slowly but surely. If the cable companies wish to stay in business and make profits without selling their souls to greed and poor business practices, they will need to completely revamp how they do things. One major ideal is to give people the channels they want, without all this "we can't do that, you have to buy the whole package" mumbo jumbo so they can charge you more. Just as they spoofed in an episode of South Park in the "Murder Porn" episode. Just give people the specific channels they want, charge a decent price for said channels, give good customer service, and if people wanna cancel, let them. It's not your business or concern to know WHY they want to cancel, they have clearly made up their mind that they want to cancel, and unless you give them a huge discount for continuing business (this happens seldomly actually) you aren't going to change their minds about cancelling, and will only serve to hinder what is inevitable, that they will cancel in some manner, regardless of the BS headaches and mind games you wish to cause.
Just a simple "We're sorry to hear that, but we hope you come back to us some day" will go a long way in possibly ensuring that they may come back some day... But all this greedy and hindering questioning and petty temporary refusals to cancel service will only ensure that they will not come back after leaving a sour taste in their mouth. It should be illegal to "refuse" to cancel someone's service like this. They pay you money for this service, they don't want to pay you money for said service anymore, it's their money, not yours, deal with it and cancel their service. Maybe if you weren't so desperate to keep your customers and their money due to failing cable sales, maybe you would make it easier on them eh? Oh but wait, in order to do that first, you'd have to improve service, but you don't wanna do that do you? Of course not... And cable companies wonder why more and more people live without cable these days. Other companies like Google and even video game consoles and so on are making it easier and easier to get entertainment from the net to your TV screen such as Netflix and Hulu that I mentioned earlier. Not to mention YouTube, and as I said earlier, give it time and a sports version of those will come about as well, rendering cable completely obsolete and useless to these modern times. If they don't change, they will get what's coming to them, trust me... It's only a matter of time. The reason good companies stay in business is because they are actually good. The reason bad companies that "appear" to be good stay in business so long is because of swindling. Sooner or later the swindlers will die out while the truly good ones thrive. Most of the time anyway. Some good companies die out for various reasons, but I think I made my point clear in this novel long post."
This can apply to any business practicing piss poor service and customer relations, but seeing as how it was relevant to cable/satellite TV providers, that is all I went into mainly.
It just sickens me how much bad companies prey upon people under the guise of being a good company, as I talked about in my comment.
What are some of your experiences with this and other issues revolving around business' poor service?
