I recently had about two months worth of trouble with my Comcast internet: service was intermittently unavailable, and no one could tell me why. Through the process of troubleshooting, considering other companies, and resolution of the issue, I came across several usability quirks along with some good ideas and efforts.
1. Comcast’s Twitter Hack
One of Comcast’s redeeming qualities is their responsiveness on Twitter. Every time I’ve had an issue that their phone support borks, or if something’s taking too long, I’ll take to Twitter and get a speedy reply. I’ve found they can often ‘elevate’ my issue and occasionally get technicians out faster.
2. Not-Terrible Automated Phone Service
Comcast makes the smart choice of giving me relevant information as soon as they confirm my account via phone. Often when I’d call, I’d hear that there was maintenance in my area, and they offered a estimated time of completion. They also give you ways to ‘refresh the signal’ to your router and do some other automated diagnostics. These are great options, but, in this case, they obscured the real problem.
3. Issue Obfuscation
Unfortunately, Comcast makes a habit out of not giving the whole story when you contact them—the difficult part to remember is that you’re probably getting 100% of the information disseminated to the service rep you’re speaking with. Regardless, I was told multiple times that there was an issue ‘in the area’ that would be resolved. A few things on this:
- I live in a complex with hundreds of other people. Does ‘in my area’ include some goober with his or her router unplugged? Or, does this mean there’s a massive service problem to my geographic area?
- It didn’t end up actually being an issue in my area—it was just the modem. But, this ‘area issue’ kept the reps from wanting to send out a technician until I called for about the 10th time in a few days.
- When I finally did get a rep the last time who wanted to send out a technician, he said he could look at activity logs and saw that I was having a major issue and needed service immediately. Why, oh, why didn’t any of the other reps look at this?
4. Getting Out In Front
If Comcast knew there was a service outage (or reason for maintenance) in my ‘area’ that affected me, they could easily build great rapport with me by sending me the information about it via email. Don’t make me call once half my day has been lost to an outage. If I get a heads-up, I can plan my day, and I feel cared for by my service provider.
5. Designing for the Moment
This blew my mind. I was ready to leave Comcast entirely, so I started looking for other internet options. I looked at Charter and AT&T U-Verse.
A quick exercise in user experience for this situation (the internet is down and the user is looking to switch providers) would tell you that:
- My internet is down. I’m on a mobile device.
- I’m probably ready to pay more for more reliable service.
- I’m ready to ‘stick it’ to my existing provider by whatever means necessary. I’m most likely angry.
Charter
Charter has a good mobile version, which is key here. However, once I see that service isn’t available (left screenshot), I feel like I’m dumped off on the side of the road. They should have taken my email address to let me know when service would be available in my area. Even if I’m not interested when the time comes, I would have gladly given my address right then, and that would’ve been an easy win for Charter.
Instead, they don’t have any way to contact me. Also, this ‘Service Not Available’ screen is broken, and really ruins my experience with them at a key moment.
AT&T U-Verse
Apparently, AT&T doesn’t find making a mobile friendly site here worth their time and effort. In the screenshots above, you can see my experience while inquiring about the service on my iPhone. The second screen shows a ridiculous prompt that requires that I put in my specific unit number—is it possible you’re offering service to another unit in my own building? I doubt it. Don’t require this.
What they do right, however, is to give me an opportunity to take action once service is deemed unavailable: I can request address research or to be notified when service is available.
Grok your users’ experience.
As I mentioned in my recent Digital Atlanta presentation, ignoring the mentality and context of your users can cause you to lose business. Learn from these companies and spend time inside the mind of your current and future users and clients—it will pay off!