The cable industry’s dismal customer satisfaction ratings have become a stereotype for the industry, but Comcast is vowing, again, to improve customer service with the promotion of Charlie Herrin to senior vice president, customer experience.
On Friday Comcast Cable CEO and president Neil Smit took to company’s blog page to tout Herrin’s new role. Herrin reports to Smit and Comcast Cable EVP and COO Dave Watson in his new job.
“In this new role, Charlie will partner with leaders across all business units, including customer service, technical operations, sales, marketing, training and development, and product innovation to reimagine the customer experience and ensure that we are delighting our customers at each touch point,” Smith wrote. “Charlie will listen to feedback from customers as well as our employees to make sure we are putting our customers at the center of every decision we make.”
“Over the last few years, we’ve been incredibly focused on product innovation and delivering great content and technology experiences. But this is only one half of the customer experience equation. The other half is operational excellence in how we deliver service. The way we interact with our customers – on the phone, online, in their homes – is as important to our success as the technology we provide. Put simply, customer service should be our best product.”
Comcast, which hopes to wrap up its acquisition of Time Warner Cable early next year, received a black eye earlier this year when a customer service call went viral in which the rep initially ignored the customer’s request to discontinue his Comcast service.
Comcast also received low marks in the latest J.D. Power and Associates customer satisfaction survey for its video and broadband services.
Smit noted that Herrin, who was most recently senior vice president, product design and development team, played a key role in the development of Comcast’s next generation X1 platform and in implementing a consistent user interface across various platforms.
“Charlie and his team received the 2011 Emmy Award for outstanding achievement for the Xfinity TV iPad app and a 2013 Emmy Award for the X1 user interface,” Smit wrote. “X1 was a breakthrough for us, and we need the best customer service to accompany these great products. Charlie will bring the same passion for customer-focused innovation that he brought to developing products to this new role. Charlie will begin his new role immediately, but will continue to work with our CTO, Tony Werner, and his current team until a new head of product design and development is in place.”
Smit said improving the customer experience was Comcast’s No. 1 priority, but noted that the transformation “may take a few years.”
