If you’ve ever written a letter to a corporation to complain, or conversely, if you’ve never written a letter because you just can seem to get the words right, you should really take a peek at this letter Lee at Right Thinking wrote to his TimeWarner owned Comcast cable/internet provider.
Here’s a snippet
Almost three years ago I moved from the San Francisco area back down to Los Angeles. My local cable company was Comcast. I had never used Comcast before, but a friend who lives on the East coast had told me horror stories about their service My experience, however, was exceptionally good. In over two years I can only think of one outage, and that was only for a few hours. I was thrilled, both with the channel line-up and the high speed internet access.
Then a few months ago Time Warner bought Comcast here in Southern California. I can’t even begin to recount the number of letters and brochures and pamphlets I received from TW promising all the “exciting†changes which were planned, not to mention the “improvements†in my channel line-up.
In the six months or so since Time Warner took over for Comcast my service has gone out at least four times. Four. In almost three years with Comcast I had one outage. In six months with your astonishingly inept company there have been four. What has changed? The cable coming into my house is the same. It’s the same channels. It’s the same hardware. The technicians are the same. Everything is the same.
In fact, the only thing that is different is Time Warner’s commitment to providing a quality product to its subscribers. Comcast at least tried to sweet talk me into bed before they screwed me. Time Warner just leaves a couple of twenties on the nightstand and tells me to get the hell out.
It gets much better further in. Check-check it.
The handwriting is on the wall for these idiots. Verizon (up here in the PacNW) is about to launch FiOS, or Fiber Optic Service. When they do, provision of HUGE bandwidth moves into the 21st Century. Schlock outfits like Time Warner will fold up like a house of cards.
As soon as Verizon laid the FiOS cable up here, Comcast started picking up on their customer service, sent a tech around WITHOUT ME CALLING, just to check the quality of the connections, etc.
Also, one of the satellite companies is promising ALL High-Def on it’s service, coming soon.
The days of crap like Time Warner dishes out are numbered. The courts have ruled that residents get a choice of who provides their signal, and cable will be only one of three competing in a marketplace whick will be driven mostly by who can provide the best customer service.