Customer Service, the Comcast Way...

I recently sent an email to Comcast, asking about a strange charge on my account. I got the response below. Sorry it's unedited. Note that it takes them about 10 paragraphs to say that they aren't going to help me. I think their execs ought to read Fred Reichheld's book!


Dear Ken,

Thank you for contacting us Comcast Cable Email Support. We are very 
glad to have you as part of the Comcast family, and it is our privilege 
to provide you an exceptional customer service. 

Ken, thank you for bringing this concern to our attention, rest assured 
that we will properly address the concern by making it sure that the 
best resolution will be provided to suffice your overall satisfaction. 

I understand you have a concern with the installation charge in your 
account when you had no service visit on your house last 20th of May 
2011. My sincere apologies that this has caused you inconvenience, Ken. 

I am more than willing to provide you the best way for us to resolve 
this issue. Rest assured, we will provide you the information you needed
within this email. 

Ken, I know that this is really frustrating. I can understand why you 
are feeling that way. I will feel the same way if this would happen to 
me. It is my topmost priority to have your billing concern resolved 
immediately. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to assist you 
with this matter. However, to ensure that we have reviewed the right 
account and proper resolution will be provided, please contact our 
Customer Service via chat or call. Also, real time security account 
verification is needed before any account and billing changes of 
information can be made. 

At Comcast, we are focused on providing our customers with the most 
secure customer service experience. To protect our customers from 
Internet fraud, we do not request or provide any sensitive customer 
information via email. 

We will be able to help you via our online chat service. You can chat 
with one of our Customer Support Specialists 24 hour a day, 7 days a 
week at 

http://www.comcastsupport.com/chat 

You may also contact us at 1-800-9346489 from Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm. 

To ensure the time you need to spend on the phone or chat is as short as
possible, I suggest you have the following information available; 

1. Name on the Account 
2. Address where service is provided and mailing address if different. 
3. Telephone number associated with the account and one of the 
following: last four digits of the Account Holder's Social Security 
Number/Security Code/Account Number/Amount of most recent payment on the
account. 

Should you need further assistance, please contact us again by directly 
replying to this e-mail. You can also contact us at 1-800-9346489 or 
chat in with us at http://www.comcastsupport.com/chat during your most 
convenient time. 

Thank you for choosing Comcast! We hope you are enjoying your new 
services. In addition to providing you with the latest and greatest 
products, we want to do everything we can to make sure you are satisfied
with your service. If you have any questions, our FAQ section is a great
resource; just visit www.comcast.net and select help. You can also call 
us at 1-800-9346489 or visit us online at comcast.com. It is a pleasure 
assisting you and resolving your issue today. Thank you for bringing 
Comcast into your home! If you need assistance in the future, please do 
not hesitate to contact us through Live Chat or E-mail (available 24 
hours a day, 7 days a week). Simply visit http://www.comcast.net and 
select Help. 

Have a wonderful day, Ken! 


Sincerely, 

ImeldaPCNV 

Comcast Customer Care Specialist 

Why you need to work your business model out in advance

Sent to me earlier by one of my students - this clip shows the problems with unvalidated assumptions in the business planning process pretty vividly!

Gnomes
Tags: SOUTH
PARKmore...

Job Creation May Be The Defining Issue of This Generation

A few weeks back, I was in Puerto Rico giving a keynote speech at a Chamber of Commerce summit on Entrepreneurship, Education, and Exports (see details here). Although I was discussing how entrepreneurship can promote job creation, as a starting point I pointed out that, although the recession may be officially "over," job creation rates in the U.S. are still plummeting, which is very different than the previous recessions in recent memory (see the grim statistics here). Today, the folks over at Economix made largely the same point using different statistics. They credit increased offshoring and globalization. I agree, but also think new technologies which make many traditional office jobs obsolete are playing a role. Whatever the causes, its an alarming trend that needs to be addressed at the policy level.

Commercializing Medical Devices Panel at the Global Business Forum

Check out this video of our panel "Commercializing Medical Devices: A View from the Trenches" at the U Miami Global Business Forum last month. We put four of the most successful serial entrepreneurs out there together & got their thoughts on the current situation and future direction of this industry. It is must viewing for anyone interested in medical technology, or healthcare entrepreneurship in general. If you watch from the very beginning, you'll see yours truly introducing the panel!

Average American Political Logic

Two recent posts by Krugman have left me a little more negative about the future of our country than I was before, although I guess I'm not too surprised. In this post, he cites a Pew Research Center poll showing that, while Americans strongly support spending cuts and are against raising taxes, they are opposed to every single individual domestic spending cut. In a later post, he cites a study showing that over 40% of recipients of medicare, social security, and unemployment benefits believe that they have not ever used a government social program. These beliefs seem to contradict lessons we all teach our elementary school children - basic arithmetic and the fact that nothing of value can be had without some kind of cost. I wonder when we start to forget these things...

Bus Plan vs. Bus Model (continued)

Found this quote from Angel Mike Maples: "Business model shouldn’t be confused with “business plan.” A business plan is a static thing, a business model charts money flowing out to create a product and money flowing back in from that product." Fair enough - but this still seems to be setting up a very traditional definition of a bus plan as a straw man. We teach our students that a bus plan must be very flexible and always adapting. We have also stripped away a lot of the operational detail that was a core component of the bus plan 10 years ago. 

Moving On or Giving Up?

Great report out today on the real unemployment story from the Roosevelt Institute. Borrowing Figure 1:


This really shows graphically that the recent drop in unemployment is not due to new jobs. Rather, it has been caused by people giving up & leaving the workforce. Of course, this does not count people who are underemployed (i.e. recent college grads working as baristas because they can't find anything better). I've been making this point for the past year or so - the unemployment rate dramatically understates the impact of this recession. Read the full report here.

Business Plan vs. Business Model

Just got back from the USASBE conference, and kept hearing talk there about how Business Plans are "out," being taken over by Business Modeling. So I did what any good blogger does and ran the two terms through Google Ngram. Sure enough, as you can see no one talked much about either until around 1970, then use of the term "business plan" grew steadily until around 2002, when it leveled off. Meanwhile, Use of the term "Business Model" really took off around 1997 (perhaps not coincidentally, this is the year that Clayton Christensen published The Innovator's Dilemma, as Christensen has become a vocal advocate of business model innovation). Now the frequency of use for the two terms has converged. I've been poking around in the business modeling literature for the past few months, and I'm still not sure that the two terms have substantially different meanings, but I'm open to being convinced.