John Hendow

Earlier this week I cataloged a few concerns I have with Comcast. Like most bloggers, I hope my postings initiate a dialog rather than standing as a statement. I do appreciate comments from readers, both on my blog (www.johnhendow.com), via direct email, and via FaceBook (where my blog is automatically cross-posted). I was surprised to attract the attention of George Lunksi who works for Comcast. He has engaged in a rational and professional dialog with me, and I’m impressed with his responsiveness. It doesn’t mean I’m satisfied with everything Comcast does, but I’m glad to know they’re listening to customers. As a result, I hereby award the “John Hendow Seal Of Approval” to Comcast George. His parent company still has work to do, and I’ll continue to provide feedback for as long as they’ll listen. But he’s doing exactly the right thing in engaging customers directly via social media.

In a previous post I pointed out some shortcomings I associate with Comcast and had a large number of people reply here, on Facebook or directly to me. As a follow up to that discussion I want to point out that only 2 days after I posted my article, I received a comment from George Lunski, a Comcast corporate representative. He took the time to respond to my posting on a point-by-point basis. His responses are shown below in boldface with my comments in regular text.

1. Our compression is minimal. Our system reviews the video quality before and after compression to ensure the highest video quality. My experience as a customer is that many channels are artifact-laden and blocky. This varies per channel, and apparently based on time of day. This is most noticeable with sporting events; soccer games / football games are notoriously challenging for compression algorithms because the grass field is interpreted as being a repeated color area, and is refreshed less often. I believe George when he says their video quality is monitored automatically. It would be inefficient – and largely pointless – for Comcast to have humans monitor every feed around the clock. However, I suggest some means of fairly immediate feedback… perhaps a menu option that allows us to report “this channel’s video / audio quality is not satisfactory”. With a massive user base, you would have people providing very useful shaping. For this matter, how about a feedback mechanism that allows your users to say “air more shows / less shows like this”, rather than just making inferences based on viewing statistics. Imagine getting your focus group data from your actual demographic rather than a statistically valid sample…

You have a 2-way communication platform and broadband. Let your users tell you something about how the system works for them, and assign trouble tickets if you start seeing reports of problems. Comcast is accused or being indifferent to its customers. Here is a clear mechanism for addressing that criticism and for tuning your network to user feedback using the existing infrastructure.

2. I don’t disagree with you. We are working towards a new GUI and are hoping to start minor upgrades this year and complete makeover next year. Hooray! The appearance of the GUI is secondary compared with my concern about responsiveness (see below), but it’s something that really should be polished up. Your competition for GUI design is the internet and handheld devices like the iPhone. Your customers are experiencing highly polished interactive data screens that are easy and actually fun to use.

3. We are also working to improve the speed and responsiveness of all makes and models of our digital cable boxes. If the screen/box continues to freezes, I would recommend replacing the box and verifying the proper signals are being received. I experience this symptom on both of my cable boxes (both of which have recently been replaced), and had it with my previous cable boxes. This has been reported by many users and is shared anecdotally during gripe sessions. It could possibly be the signal, although I have had it tested. If there is some way for me to test this, I’d be happy to assist.

Again, your competition is the rest of the internet / mobile device universe. Nothing else in my entire household is this unresponsive, and I live in a pretty large world of technology. If my cell phone acted this way I would take it back and find another device (or carrier). I can view full-screen HD video content on my computer. I can surf the web with very little delay when loading huge complex interfaces. Why is there some kind of semaphore lock / busy wait associated with getting another few hundred characters from the server? If it’s insurmountable, you need to consider some options… maybe build a chrome-less web browser to contain the entire delivery system. That way you could use standard HTML / XML to manage the interface.

4. Comcast is currently testing creating a more ‘interactive’ television viewing experience. I do not have any further details or ETA. Nice! This seems like an obvious feature for the cable industry and I’m sure it’s been in the works. I’ll look forward to seeing what they come up with.

5. We appreciate the feedback. All content providers, including Comcast & FiOS, have these types of exclusivity in many markets throughout the country. They are sometimes done by the local franchises in order to allow either company to be present. A issue neither company can resolve. Regional exclusivity doesn’t improve the customer experience. My point is that having a single choice isn’t good for the industry. Competition is absolutely necessary to help drive innovation. I’m not suggesting that Comcast (or any company) needs to be the undefeatable champion for every aspect of technology and deliver flawlessly forever. But I am suggesting that exclusivity can lead to inaction and customer dissatisfaction. Want another example? Examine the customer backlash AT&T is experiencing in the wake of the WWDC. If you are the sole provider, you need to surprise and delight your customers at all times (and even then they might grumble). AT&T is finding themselves in the unenviable position of having exclusive rights to the most desirable technological device in history, and being unable to offer support for its most anticipated features. Consequently many customers are saying they’ll wait until another carrier enters the market (perhaps next year) and then immediately switch. If there is competition and you demonstrate a dedication to quality and value, your customers are more likely feel they are making a good choice.

In case of Comcast vs FIOS, I’m not convinced I’m getting good value because there isn’t anything else for me to compare it to in my area. My friends with FIOS say it’s not without its issues, but they like it enough that they have continued to use it. To me this sounds like an opportunity for Comcast to demonstrate something about its belief in quality. Customers without choice are not loyal customers.

6. Comcast Digital Voice uses a dedicated network to make calls. Skype does not, there for Internet Congestion and/or failure can result in a less enjoyable phone call. True. Skype is not the highest quality voice experience and their customer support is nonexistent. But $40+ per month for digital voice? This is not eating up Comcast’s network bandwidth and is a low value-add service to customers. It should be much less expensive (perhaps $10 per month) as an incentive for subscribing to Comcast digital cable and high speed broadband services. In another post I described how I recently parked a phone number and have it forwarding to my cell phone. This is a $10 per month service, and the company (Number Garage) isn’t bundling the service with any other monthly fee. I recognize that unlike Comcast, they aren’t attempting to recoup an investment in cable delivery infrastructure and that they are delivering the calls to an existing phone account, which I pay for separately. But it’s an example of a service that provides high value and their very existence as a competitor may help drive change within the industry.

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George surprised me with his quick response to my questions. I appreciate the dialog and hope Comcast considers my points. Any further responses will included here.

I’ll preface this posting by saying that I’m a geek and love technology. While this is a bit of a rant, it comes from a heart that ticks with excitement over the possibilities of the interconnected world. And so I’m occasionally disappointed when opportunity for advancement is being ignored. I am among the massive consumer base that begrudgingly pays Comcast for their service every month. Over the years I’ve probably sent them enough money to fund my own communication satellite. My general state of satisfaction with their Triple-Play services (digital voice, digital cable, broadband internet) can be described as “if there was an alternative I’d switch”. This isn’t a good state of affairs for a company as big as they are. Consider this: I have an iPhone and consider the AT&T service to be very good. So good that I can stomach paying the bill, content that I’m getting a good value for the price. I’m not attempting to argue that Comcast should lower their prices so much as they should raise their game. They should strive to be worth paying for. Some top-of-mind thoughts:

1. Digital TV / HD feeds are too compressed. In the never-ending drive to offer hundreds of useless channels, Comcast is over-compressing the best-looking source feeds to conserve bandwidth across the board. Consequently, everything suffers. I don’t want one thousand channels. I want one hundred good-looking ones.
2. Digital TV / On-Screen Menu system is ugly. Comcast needs a decent-looking menu system with antialiased text. On my HDTV it’s downright sad to look at that horrible font and its jagged lines. Build it in Flash or Silverlight. Get the feed via XML. Show me thumbnails.
3. Digital TV / On-Screen Menu system is slow and unresponsive. Every third (or second!) screen the menu system freezes while information is being pulled from the server. Is Comcast is actually pulling this request in real time for each user request? Why isn’t the entire current TV listing guide available as an XML file that can be stored on each local cable box? Why does it take so long for the system to respond? While the menu is retrieving data the cable box is frozen and will not respond to any command – including “exit and forget I asked”. It can take over 15 seconds for the system to return to a usable state. This is perhaps the most glaring issue with Comcast digital cable service. The processor in my Motorola cable box is capable of processing data more efficiently than this. Surely it could be outfitted with enough RAM to store a text file. If not, how about enabling that USB port on my cable box and let me plug in a thumb drive as an optional storage device for the menu?
4. Comcast provides my telephone, digital cable and broadband internet. Why are they just now beginning to offer a service (on-screen caller ID) that actually spans two of those digital services? Comcast hasn’t done anything to revolutionize their monopoly in the digital connectivity space. Every time I talk with friends we think of a dozen great  opportunities for them to blur the lines between these services and attract customers to purchase an integrated full-media package. Are we the only ones thinking of this? Here’s a thought: if I’m watching TV and some advertiser displays a properly formatted URL, why not convert it to a link and offer me the option to pop open a browser to view that page? What about letting me view TV in a window while I’m web surfing? Why can’t I listen to my phone messages from my TV menu? It’s just data, and it all comes from the same cable.
5. Comcast is the only physical connection available in my area. Some of my neighbors are using DTV or other satellite systems, which seem prone to issues. I prefer a direct connection and over the past few years I’ve grown so dissatisfied with Comcast that I’ve repeated attempted to order Verizon FIOS. Verizon has informed me that Comcast has some kind of territorial exclusivity in my area, and that they won’t bring FIOS into areas where Comcast has already pulled cable. Is this really good for either company? Comcast needs the competition to drive them. Clearly having a market lead hasn’t done them any good.
6. Digital Voice / Why are we even paying for this? What is it that is being offered here that we can’t accomplish via Skype? Why is Comcast charging for a service that offers nothing more than any telecommunications provider already does? This could be a huge value-add service for Comcast.

I hope someone challenges Comcast’s dominant position in the market and forces them to innovate. This company is consistently identified as having one of the lowest customer-satisfaction ratings across any US industry, and their response has been to advertise themselves as being the better choice rather than demonstrating any truth to that statement. They need someone to seriously drive them beyond 20th-century business behavior.

For the past 10+ years I’ve had the same mobile number. Originally it was my pager number, then I had it ported to be my cell phone number. Over the years I’ve switched carriers a few times and moved around a bit. But this cell number is my digital identity and it’s been a reliable means of reaching me wherever I might be. Currently it’s tied to a personal cell phone that I don’t use. My employer provides a cell phone which has a different number. So for the past nine months I’ve simply had my carrier forward all calls from my personal cell to my work cell, allowing me to carry one phone. But all this time I’ve been paying a full monthly account fee with my personal cell provider even though I haven’t powered up that cell phone in nine months! Fortunately I’m no longer under a contract with them and can leave at any time. In order to avoid paying an unnecessary monthly bill I started to explore my options:

1. I could keep my personal number on some kind of less expensive “parking and forwarding” option but apparently none of the major cell carriers offer this. I’ve pleaded with my current provider for a better deal than the $40 monthly package they inform is the best available deal. They want to keep my business, but only on their terms.
2. I could just close my account and tell everyone to take note of my new number. But there are a lot of people in the music industry who have my number; I hear from some of them infrequently and I’m not interested in trying to reach out to all of them with a “please update your records” email.

As of today I’ve ported the number to an independent “park and forward” service called Number Garage. There are other options out there for this service, some of which are a little less expensive. But quality and support are really important to me. After exchanging a few emails with Jeff Heeren – the company’s “Chief Mechanic” – I made the decision to go with them based on his quick replies and complete answers. Within ten minutes of completing the online setup as a new customer, I received (1) an email confirming that the account was set up, (2) an electronic invoice for my payment and (3) notification that my current carrier has been notified to initiate the porting request. My expectation is that it will take several days to complete the porting process. This service will cost me less than $10 per month. I’ll continue to provide updates on the account setup process and the quality of the service. Stay tuned!

Brad Nelson is a great friend, a fellow member of The Preons, and this week he’s the PI’s “Geek of the Week“. As geeks go, he’s definitely got the technical acumen to qualify for that title, but he’s also one of the most personable and funny people I know. What is especially impressive about his work as the official Twitter voice of Starbucks is that he personally came up with the idea of setting up the Twitter account for the the company, then very quickly gathered 198,000 followers. If you ever want a good case study on how to use Twitter correctly, this is it. He relates honestly and directly via Twitter, and has always used his real name.

As a former Starbucks employee, I have a strong sense of connection to the brand. The best thing that Starbucks has going for them is the emotional and personal connection they form with their customers. Brad is a hugely valuable asset for this and his personal style is readily apparent in those 140-charater tweets. No wonder he’s become one of the most followed corporate Twitter authors.

One of the (supposed) classic interview questions posited to Microsoft applicants is “why are manhole covers round?”. This is intended to be an assessment of the applicant’s problem solving abilities, rather than a test of whether they know the answer. Everyone has heard this question and its answer which is “because that’s the only shape that ensures it can’t fall into the hole.”

This weekend a few of us were sitting around backstage before our set, and someone raised the question. After the classic answer was given I started to recall something from a calculus class, which means some rusty file drawer in my brain was getting delved into. The crucial characteristic that makes a circle the correct answer is that it has a constant diameter; regardless of where you measure a circle the diameter is the same and therefore it cannot be manipulated or turned in such a way that it could fall down into the hole. But a dim lightbulb was sparking in my head and I thought perhaps there was something geeky to add to the conversation. After a minute or so, I remembered it. Actually there is another shape that fulfills the requirement and would be a good alternate answer if you’re ever asked that question. That shape is the Reuleaux triangle.

Understanding the nature of this shape is fundamental to being able to justify it as a good answer to the manhole cover question. If you were to start with a standard equilateral triangle and dig out your compass (if you’re under 30 you probably didn’t ever use a compass in geometry), you place the point in one corner of the triangle and sweep between the other two points. The resulting shape is three sided but possesses the unusual characteristic of having a constant diameter. If a manhole cover was fabricated in this shape it would never fall into the hole.

Recently I was putting together some documentation for a project that required a QR code generator, and I thought “why not make my own QR code?”. This way I can… um… do stuff with it. Well, I haven’t exactly figured out WHY I need this, but that has never stopped me from doing something geeky. Therefore, behold my personal QR code and be appropriately impressed / unimpressed. I think I might put it on some stickers and begin tagging my flight cases with it. If you don’t already have a QR code reader, there are a number of free apps for your cell phone that allow you to decode them.