Futility

Comcast has been carpet-bombing us with letters asking us to call for an "account review," promising to give us more for our money. We get one about every two weeks. The cost of our cable and internet has crept up and up over the past several years and it would be nice to have that bill reduced if possible, so the Mrs. asked me to call them.

I was reluctant to call for a couple of reasons. I don't care for the idea that there's some sort of special discount that may be available, but the only way i can find out about it is if I call the provider. Big companies like Comcast expend most of their effort toward getting new customers, whether that means luring people away from their competition or expanding the areas where they offer their services. Longtime customers should be rewarded for their loyalty, and it should be really easy for me to find out what those rewards are, like going into my account online.

Beyond that I suspected the call would be a waste of time. I called yesterday, and I was right. I was hoping for some sort of discount or variation on our current package that would lower our bill, and I made it clear at the start of the call that I was not interested in adding any other services (they sell all kinds of other crap now like home monitoring, which I'm sure is great for some people). The only offer the rep was able to offer was the addition of HBO and Starz, for about the same amount as we're paying now, but only with a package that includes a home phone line that we neither need nor want.

When I pointed this out to the rep, she actually said something like, "You don't have to activate it." How incredibly pointless and stupid is that? Especially now, with people turning away from cable TV but keeping internet access in order to use streaming services, you would think companies like Comcast would be trying to do more to hold onto the customers they have. I believe it's time for us to consider other provider options.