Here’s Why Your Comcast Rep Is Yelling at You ⇥ theverge.com

You know how I (and so many others) thought that Ryan Block’s terrible Comcast service call was symptomatic of greater institutional issues at the company? Turns out that’s right. Adrianne Jeffries, the Verge:

[T]he incentive structure [for retention specialists] is really about punishment. Reps start out the month with a full commission, but every canceled product deducts from that amount. Once reps fall below a certain threshold, they get no commission at all. That means a rep could get all the way to the second-to-last day of the pay period only to have a customer cancel four products. Suddenly the rep is below her goal, losing $800 to $1,000 off her paycheck.

Deplorable. And, in many markets, Comcast has no competition — not “virtually no”, but none. Why would they even try to make their customers happy?