Comcast Shoots For New Image, Rebranding As Xfinity 356
artemis writes "Comcast is making efforts to repair and restore its 'former glory' by the act of transformation, rebranding itself as Xfinity. Hopefully step 2 is an actual change in quality and customer service. 'Comcast will use the Xfinity rebranding to talk up its improved customer service as well as its technical upgrades. “There’s a lot to be proud of,’’ said Steve Hackley, Comcast’s senior vice president for the Greater Boston region. “We want to take credit for it.’’ W2 Group’s Weber said such a rebranding is “a bit old-fashioned’’ and a new name is unlikely to impress consumers. “I think the public is smarter than that now,’’ he said.'"
Why? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yeah, and Blackwater is now called Xe. (Score:3, Informative)
Counterpoint: Altria (Phillip Morris)
Re:Meaningless names (Score:4, Informative)
Accenture lost the Arthur Andersen name when they split from the accounting firm. Just in time for the Andersen name to be blackened by the Enron scandal. So, definitely a good name change for them.
Re:its still comcrap to me (Score:2, Informative)
Xfinshitty
Xcrappity
Suxfinity
Nope, they must not have done that -- Hell I'm half a century old, bet kids could come up with many more.
Mod Parent Up (Score:3, Informative)
I can corroborate all of the claims made about Time Warner.
The universally horrible service of subscription television is why we don't buy any service. It's a nice chunk of change at the end of the year. The shows are out on DVD the next year anyway.
"Douchefinity" was taken, I guess... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Seriously? (Score:3, Informative)
Because most of their areas they are a monopoly.
your choice is Nothing or Comcast, pick one.
Ohhh, AOL dialup is still available! or you can get $299.00 a month dsl speeds with 600ms latency with satellite broadband....
Re:Seriously? (Score:1, Informative)
They still have customers because there is only one owner of coax in a given area. So for TV you can choose whatever the local cable company is(Comcrap, RCN, etc) or get satellite.
If you are in a Comcast area you have no choice. For phone and internet you could get Verizon or other local telco but DSL generally sucks.
I suppose there is FIOS in some areas as an alternative ... ugh ... any competition is better than no competition for customers.
Re:bad branding (Score:5, Informative)
Your friends may talk shit about Comcast, but they have no idea how good Xfinity is, but damnit they have gotta be better than comcast.
Comcast isn't changing their name... they're just renaming their service. It's going to be Comcast Xfinity now.
Re:Xfinity equals... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure why Comcast gets so much hate. Maybe it depends on the local market you are in?
Yes, this is exactly their problem.
I'm here on a beautiful 16/2 connection that always rocks. I've seen a 5-minute outage at 4:30AM once. It's former Adelphia territory.
But if you go 60 miles away, everybody who only has Comcast just hates it. You'll hear similar bipolar stories from all over.
They seem unable to find their winning processes and replicate them into company-wide success. Perhaps they should spend more money on business process management and quality measures and less on branding?
Re:Xfinity equals... (Score:5, Informative)
About a year ago I called their technical support line on behalf of my aunt in NYC, who had just gotten their HD upgrade or something I don't recall, and the picture was missing the red portion of the signal. (note that your reading that last sentence, there wasn't much room for misunderstanding, was there? You can understand the situation I'm describing, right?)
The conversation began badly, and went downhill from there:
Me: "Hi, we seem to be having a problem with our HD cable signal -- the picture is missing the red channel, so everything looks a little bit blue. I've tested this by swapping out the cables from the RGB (whatever it was), reversing them, so I think it's definitely a problem with your cable box, not our cables or our TV. Can you help me with that?"
Her: "sorry sir, looking in your channel lineup, I don't see any Red Channel."
Me: @#$!%#@
Me: regathering politeness, and for the next 20 minutes: "Sorry, I must not have explained that well -- you know how the tv signal has red/green/blue parts? Well, it seems to be missing the red part, so that the color is off."
Her: "no sir, I don't understand, and please, don't fiddle with the cables, please follow my instruction to turn the unit off and reset it."
after 20 minutes:
Me: "Maam, you don't seem to have the technical knowledge to even understand the problem I'm having -- could you please transfer me to someone who does."
10 more minutes of me getting angry that she won't transfer me. Followed by my filing a complaint with a request to be called back. I get called back, the guy on the line understands the problem immediately, and sends someone out the next day.
I cannot stand incompetence that doesn't recognize itself. And that a customer service assistance unit would staff its helpline with someone of such stupidity.
The other thing I learned -- don't get frustrated with stupidity, just leave. Politely hang up (there's no sense in angering yourself, or offending the moron) and call back until you get someone who knows what they're talking about. And I'm not just talking about with cable companies, I've discovered that this applies about life in general....
Re:Xfinity equals... (Score:2, Informative)
It does seem to be very much where you live. I have had awesome luck with Comcast. Only had to call customer service once and they were out there the next day, replaced my modem and everything was just fine. Speed is great (well for US cable anyway). I have tried both the local Knology and AT&T, and both cost more for slower speeds.
However I have a friend who lives about 20 minutes away who has Comcast and his is awful. The speed makes it almost unusable between 4-6pm. Goes down every other day for an hour or so. Just where you live. Same with any ISP in my exp.