In these troubling economic times, I can understand the reasoning behind hiring underpaid, under-educated folks in an attempt to save money, but at a certain point I assume you need to ask yourself if it's worth the potential loss of loyal customers. I've tolerated the discounted prices for new customers while simultaneously stiffing long term customers with ever increasing prices. I've tolerated the meaningless buzzwords like "speed boost" which, in itself, is basically useless. However, when I contact customer support because of faulty hardware which I pay a monthly fee to use, I want to feel like the person I'm speaking with has more than half a brain in their head. Recently my service has been disruptive due to a faulty modem. No matter how much I tried to explain to the various "techs" I spoke with that the modem itself is faulty and that I required a replacement, they continued to explain to me that in fact it was common for modems to need to be power cycled on a daily basis. Furthermore, one tech explained to me that if she, and I quote, "sent signal" my modem would magically work again. Both myself and my roommates work in the tech industry. Never once has the solution to a technical problem involving a modem losing sync been to "send signal." Unless, of course, it wasn't plugged in. "I send signal and now your modem works." That is not a solution. That's an unqualified employee working in a job that, as far as your customers are concerned, requires a basic level of technical know-how.

Furthermore, it shouldn't take five calls to the support center to find out which "package" I'm in. Yes, it took five calls before someone could tell me which package I was in, as it doesn't say on the bills. Even with that knowledge, I'm paying $2 more per month than the advertised prices on comcast.com. How does that work? I know it's insignificant, but seriously? Your company has so many different deals, ranging from the foot soldier only deals that are provided by the door-to-door contractors, the website deals, the TV deals. Every time I call into the call center, I get a different price quote. It's insane. I once called in to upgrade our internet speeds. I was quoted a price and speed not listed on comcast.com. When I referred to the comcast.com price, I was informed that I could only get that price through comcast.com and not through the call center. Your departments don't even know what's going on with each other, and somehow you expect your customers to keep track?

I'm sure you know what the opinion is of your company. You're seen as a bloated joke, cutting corners at every turn with absolutely no loyalty to long term customers while frantically trying to gobble up market share. I live in Washington. Here's the situation. You've already lost a substantial chunk of Edmonds, WA to Verizon's FIOS network. Partially because the digital switch happened there earlier than everyone else and without warning, leaving massive amounts of your customers waking up with no service one morning, but mostly because apparently in Edmonds your service is even worse than it is in Seattle. If Qwest didn't have a stranglehold on the Seattle area which would allow Verizon to move in, I'd have switched from you ages ago. I've already cancelled my TV service, opting for internet only video services like Hulu, etc. Only recently did I re-sign up for limited cable, your "maybe if they like it they'll upgrade to digital services" package. I did so only because it was $10/month for a year, discounting my internet by ten dollars, which basically gets me a free 29 channels. I won't be upgrading to the digital cable packages. Between the broken DVR services, the abysmal user-interface, and the random distortion in picture and sound, I had it. Your service is sub-par. The prices are a joke, Your advertising campaigns border on criminal (fiber optic network? Maybe to the nodes, definitely not to individual houses, which Verizon does do). And when we call tech support in a feeble attempt to solve our constant issues with your shoddy service, we're met with such unbelievable incompetence it makes me wonder how this company survives at all. "I send signal and your modem works now," she says, as if she waved her magic wand and magically technology doesn't operate in a logical plain of existence.

So there it is. I'll await my canned response thanking me for my input and informing me how important my feedback is to the company.