headphono.us

Caution: Semi-long rant, but a valuable message at the end.

I’ve had my fair share of troubles with poorly implemented online systems (I’m looking at you Citibank), but my experience today with Comcast takes the cake. This is an example of how digitizing traditional processes with state-of-the-art online payment systems might reduce costs for large corporations, but if not implemented correctly can backfire by deteriorating the brand image. After today, I am thinking of changing cable/internet providers not because my current provider Comcast doesn’t offer a great lineup of channels and have been generally very good about giving me discounts, but simply because of the amount of pain I had to suffer as a customer to use their online system.

My troubles started a few months back when my account on comcast.com wouldn’t accept my password. Now I use a lot of different passwords so I attributed it to user error and tried to recover my password. Upon loading the password recovery screen, it presented me with the following:

Secret Question: Your secret question has expired.
Secret Answer: <text input field>

Of course since my secret question had expired (which I wasn’t aware had an expiry date in the first place), submitting the form with a blank secret answer worked and it sent me the password recovery email. Using the link from the email I was able to change my password and log in to my account. But oddly enough, the new password wouldn’t be saved. So the next time I went to login, I was reduced to following this same process.

Now this is fine. The customer will always chose the least costly option. For me, it was repeating this arcane process instead of calling their tech support. Most customers deal with minor annoyances for any product so it wasn’t very unusual.

However, the kicker came recently when Comcast supposedly “upgraded” their system. This new system locked me out completely. And worst of all, it seemed to throw errors all over the place for no apparent reason. Trying to repeat the above process, I would get to the password recovery screen only to be told a very generic “An error has occured. Please call 1-800-COMCAST”.

Unable to yield the system to my ways, I decided to throw up my hands and call 1-800-COMCAST. Lo and behold, after the 5-minute promo messages, I was asked to choose whether I had a problem with my service or had a billing question. As a customer, I’m now supposed to chose between two options of which neither fit my problem.

Suggestion to Comcast: Choices are great for streamlining helpdesk/support systems for companies. Not so much for customers who have to decide on options which may not be clear or to which they themselves might not know the answer to. Keep choices open-ended and inclusive of all possible problems.

Anyway, having previous experience with such systems, I decided to try the undocumented press “0″ to speak to an operator. Unfortunately, Comcast doesn’t believe in offering that convenience so it didn’t work. I was reduced to choosing “problem with my service” (even though I didnt). The next choice was between Cable, Internet or Phone. Huh? I guess I have no issues with my Internet connection but comcast.com is *on* the internet, so I guess that is the closest choice. Let’s go for it.

After waiting through the usual stellar music choices, I was connected to someone. Anyway, reading from her script, she explained that their new system was migrating all accounts from comcast.com to comcast.net and then proceeded to up sell me on the great new features about comcast.net. At this stage, since I didn’t really care about comcast.net I decided to cut her short and explained my problem of not being able to login to comcast.com, not comcast.net. She didn’t seem to understand and kept repeating that I had to login through comcast.net.

With no energy to argue any more, I decided to sign up and establish an account with comcast.net. Once I logged in and saw an option to “Pay my bill”, I rejoiced. Unfortunately, clicking on “Pay my bill” put me into a giant infinite loop where it would send me to Login followed by Logout and back again. It was almost comical.

Trying a different browser seemed to fix the infinite loop issue. One. Step. Closer. Arriving at the screen to supply my credit card information, I didn’t have much faith in the system. Here’s a reputable company who has completely lost my faith because of a horribly implemented IT solution. I proceeded to enter my details (I had to pay the bill anyway), hit Submit and lo and behold, it got stuck in the infinite loop again. No indication whether the payment went through successfully or not. I guess I’ll have to check with my bank.

This rant isn’t to highlight the major fallacies of the Comcast online system as much as the importance of implementing IT systems that are in line with the strategy of brand building. It’s quite easy to look at IT as a way of reducing costs, streamlining processes and reducing headcount. Those are all operating concerns and should be of high importance to any CIO. However, the risk of implementing these IT systems poorly and not testing them enough results in a severe loss of brand equity. Comcast – the brand – in my eyes is now an organization that does not value technology. It gives me no faith in its crucial systems (like credit card transactions) and will now lead me to look elsewhere. Their brand equity is so depleted in my case that I’m ready to overlook all their good qualities (discounts, good cable quality, great selection of hi-def channels, etc.). I’m ready to move to DirectTV or Dish Network or anyone else that has a much more reliable online system because to me as a consumer those are all integral parts of the brand.

This isn’t limited to Comcast. I was recently so frustrated with Citibank’s online system that I decided to move all my checkings, savings, and investment accounts to Bank of America – specifically because of their online system. Sure, I’m not the typical consumer because I put a lot more value into online systems and how they make my life easier, but that’s not to say that this online channel is not important. After all, if it wasn’t important, large corporations wouldn’t be spending millions on implementing these new online payment systems.

I know most people have horror stories about their technical problems with a variety of online systems. How has the brand image of a corporation been affected if and when you’ve had such problems in the past? Have you been frustrated enough to change to a competitor? Have you lost trust and faith in the brand? Have you gone so far as to virally spread the negative brand experiences with others?