• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, May 22, 2015

Comcast Corp. says its cable business need better customer service -- way better. So now the company will offer customers an “on-time” guarantee for service and a $20 credit if service personnel shows up late.

Brian Roberts, chairman/chief executive officer of Comcast Corp., says while many Comcast subscribers get good service, others have “disastrous” experiences.

We all know how cable business continue to leak subscribers -- at Comcast and many other cable operators. In that regard, many cable operators aren’t talking about customer service as the reason. Rather they point to the need for cheaper OTT

You may wonder then when consumers will start complaining about these cheaper OTT services. Will they be getting the same customer service experience they got while paying full price? Time will tell; we are in the early stages of that business.

Last September Comcast started up a new position, senior vice president of customer experience, naming Charlie Herrin to the post. That was the year Comcast was the subject of an incident that went viral, when  a Comcast representative refused to allow one subscriber to disconnect his service.  Even then Neil Smit, CEO of Comcast Cable,  said it could take a few years for Comcast Corp. customer service efforts to truly right themselves.

Thinking snarky thoughts? All this comes after Comcast lost some respect after failing to take over Time Warner Cable, which would have given it a dominating share of all U.S. cable operations.

You might be right.

But you only need to look at other consumer-facing brands and see what their customer service efforts mean to them -- like Apple, and how its consumers value this brand. Then you might realize it isn’t just about price and product but how customers feel about them, their brand, when they walk out of a store after interacting with their representatives.

Comcast still needs to learn a lesson or two. Maybe before they go out and buy another big media company, they’ll focus first on what other modern entertainment/media brands already have focused on: service.