Comcast Says It Will Create 5,500 Customer Service Jobs

Comcast will create more than 5,500 customer service jobs as part of a new multiyear plan to improve customer service, it said Tuesday in a news release. The plan includes a goal by Q3 2015 of being always on time for customer appointments, it said. The company will “simplify billing and create better policies to provide greater consistency and transparency to customers” and invest in employee training, it said. “This transformation is about shifting our mindset to be completely focused on the customer,” said Neil Smit, CEO of Comcast Cable. The company's new job creation effort will kick off with 2,000 new employees hired to staff three new customer support centers in Albuquerque, Spokane and Tucson, Comcast said. The first new center -- in Albuquerque -- will be staffed with “bilingual employees who will support Spanish-speaking customers across the country,” Comcast said. The centers in Tucson and Spokane will be “operational” later this year, Comcast said. The company is tripling the size of its social media customer care team, hiring 250 new employees for its Xfinity stores, and automatically crediting customers $20 if a technician is late, it said. The customer service effort also includes an online service that will let customers track their service technicians, revamped Xfinity stores and increased training, Comcast said. In Chicago at INTX 2015, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts Tuesday demo'd new technologies designed to improve customer service (see 1505040059) after what he has called a disappointing end to the company's bid for Time Warner Cable (see 1505040059).