How Comcast and Charter are trying to fix their awful customer service

Comcast and Charter told US Senators how they're trying to fix their poorly rated customer service. Executives from the nation's two largest cable companies testified in a hearing in response to a Senate investigation detailing the industry's shortcomings. Comcast Cable Senior VP of Customer Service Tom Karinshak detailed some customer service initiatives, mostly ones that are already in progress. AT&T (owner of DirecTV) and Dish also testified.

"At Comcast, we understand why we are here," Karinshak said. "We and the industry as a whole have not always made customer service the high priority it should have been. We regret that history and have committed to our customers that we will lead the way with initiatives to change it; we are committed to making every part of our customers’ experience better, and we have already begun to do so." Comcast said it has come up with a customer "Bill of Rights" with principles including these: more training and technology for employees; fair prices for customers; being on time and minimizing wait times; enabling self-service; keeping bills simple and transparent; re-assessing policies and fees that frustrate customers; crediting customers proactively for outages and billing errors; allowing customers to end their service without a hassle; [and] measuring employees on customer satisfaction.