Comcast names a rising exec to fix customer service

After an epic breakdown in customer service this summer, Comcast Corp. has appointed a fast-rising executive, Charlie Herrin, to a new position with broad powers to fix Comcast's relationship with its customers.

Herrin, 44, ran the team that developed Comcast's interactive X1 TV guide. He now has been named senior vice president of customer experience.

Herrin joins Tom Karinshak, senior vice president for customer service, and Patrick O'Hare, senior vice president of field operations, in a sector of Comcast business with more than 50 call centers and tens of thousands of customer service employees and technicians.

"Charlie will look at everything we do with customers across the board," company spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury said Monday.

Herrin "completely changed the convention of TV viewing with X1," and Comcast believes he can bring that same customer focus to customer service, Khoury said.

Herrin declined a request for an interview because, Khoury said, he had just accepted the job. He reports to Neil Smit, president and chief executive officer of Comcast's cable division, and David Watson, chief operating officer of the cable division.

Appointing Herrin comes at a sensitive time for Comcast. Federal regulators are exhaustively reviewing the Philadelphia cable giant's proposed $45.2 billion deal for Time Warner Cable Inc., and Comcast's poor record of customer service has become an issue in Washington.

Both Comcast and Time Warner Cable consistently rank low in independent customer satisfaction surveys and have been beset by highly publicized failings in the past year.

In July, AOL Inc. vice president Ryan Block posted online an eight-minute conversation with a Comcast customer service representative who argued against Block's dropping his Comcast Internet service.

The call - that went viral on the Internet with the help of Block's 80,000 Twitter followers - has been listened to more than five million times, according to Soundcloud.com.

Watson, the COO of Comcast's cable operations, said in an internal memo in July that "it was painful to listen to [Block's] call, and I am not surprised we have been criticized for it." Watson also said the call was not representative of how Comcast dealt with subscribers.

The online tech site the Verge published a series on Comcast's customer service woes after the Block recording went viral, speaking to 100 current or former Comcast employees.

Tom Wheeler, the head of the Federal Communications Commission, which is reviewing Comcast's efforts to acquire Time Warner Cable, acknowledged the Block furor this month, noting in a speech:

"Once consumers choose a broadband provider, they face high switching costs that include early termination fees and equipmental fees. And if those disincentives to competition weren't enough, the media is full of stories of consumers' struggles to get ISPs to allow them to drop service."

Wheeler did not directly reference Comcast, Time Warner Cable, or his review of the potential merger in the speech.

Steve Beck, founder and managing partner of management consultancy cg42, said Monday, "While this is a step in the right direction, I doubt one executive appointment is enough to overcome Comcast's significant customer experience problems.

"The critical question is: Is there a real commitment to addressing the culture of taking advantage of customers, which has dominated the cable industry for years?"

Cg42 this year published its "Cable Industry Vulnerability Study." Beck said in the report, "The study reveals the cable industry to have higher levels of Brand Vulnerability than any industry we have studied to date."

David VanAmburg, managing director at the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which rated Time Warner Cable and Comcast at the bottom of its list for customer satisfaction in early 2014, said Herrin's appointment was "an important first step" but there did not seem to be easy fixes.

Herrin graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in economics, and began his career at Comcast in 1999 as director of business development for the company's Internet business.

Before this latest appointment, Herrin was senior vice president of product design and development, leading software and engineering teams in Philadelphia, Denver, and the San Francisco area.

Comcast is looking for an executive to replace Herrin in the product-development role.

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