A Woman on a Rampage Shakes up Comcast
Mona Shaw, a 75-year-old woman from Bristow, VA, recently did something that many dissatisfied customers only dream of doing: She took a hammer to her local Comcast office and smashed customers service reps’ keyboards, monitors, and phones.
This came after the cable company failed to show up on the appointed day to install its Triple Play service, then came two days later and left with the job half done, and in another two days, cut off all service. After she and her husband went to their local Comcast store to speak to the manager, they waited for two hours on a bench outside before being told that the manager had left for the day.
This prompted “The Hammer,” as The Washington Post has affectionately dubbed her, to go on her now infamous rampage. 1to1 doesn’t excuse this behavior, but we wonder how many people have dreamed of taking out their rage in this age of incompetent service reps.
In the desire for companies to change their ways, Bob Garfield launched www.comcastmustdie.com a couple months ago as an opportunity for customers to vent their grievances and for Comcast to pay close attention.
It seems to be working. The site has been deluged with negative comments from employees and customers. But Comcast is paying attention. On October 24, after The Hammer incident, Comcast CEO Rick Germano wrote an entry on Comcastmustdie.com about how he’s focused on “getting better” at making customers happy and that he believes it’s important to listen to customers, saying that the company is currently contacting dissatisfied customers to resolve their problems.
While Comcast, notorious for providing poor customer service, is finally showing good corporate citizenship by dedicating a staff and developing a strategy for improving customer care, the company was nonetheless driven to these new standards by negative publicity.
For the Comcasts of the world, don’t let poor service, negative customer experiences, and disinterested employees poison your culture. Identify and correct such problems now before they become a cancer, or a hammer, in your organization.
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