Comcast Business Services: what do you want to know?
In figuring out what to write for my very first post, I decided to step back and ask myself “What am I trying to accomplish?”
First and foremost, I’d like the blog to be relevant and interesting - something you’d actually care to engage in and read again. I’d like to get your feedback and ideas on how we can improve the data, voice, television, messaging and other services that Comcast Business Services provides to small businesses. I’d like to share my enthusiasm for our products, our company and our industry. I’d like to have a vehicle to tell you what we’re doing to improve your experience with us – particularly at those times when we mess up (as we sometimes do).
But where to start?
Coincidentally, I’ve been listening to What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis. One of the themes Jarvis hammers home is that the blogosphere has given customers a profoundly new voice. The good news is that customers are engaged with your brand & products in a very active way. They want to talk about your products. They want to tell prospective customers about their experiences with your products. They want to tell you how to make them better. Of course, they don’t just say the good stuff. And when the bad stuff is really bad, the self-organizing nature of the web can create a tsunami. As a result, customers are in charge more than ever before.
With “What Would Google Do” in mind, I decided that the best path forward was not to figure out what I want to accomplish, but rather to understand what you would like to get out of this blog.
What do you want out of a dialogue with the guy who’s responsible for cooking up Comcast’s business products & services? What would be so interesting or useful that you’d keep coming back, posting and sharing your insights?
Please drop me a note or post a comment letting me know what you’d like to hear about or discuss.
Thanks. I look forward to hearing your thoughts
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Comments (9)
how can we start a new ethnic HD channel on Comcast in MN, we have a large community in MN and are interested starting up a a 24 hour news and entertainment local channel to the ethnic Somali's living in MN, their numbers exceed more than 120000 and they are all Comcast Customers, please let me know what you think of this idea Thank you
It seems to me that alot of time Comcast business services lacks common sense, it seems that your front line (those who answer the phone when you call) don't have authority or discretion.
I have two locations each with a seperate comcast line and therefore an account. So every month I get two bills with two accounts. I just want to write one check, I print my checks and pay basically .44 per check, not to mention the accountant wasted time and also mine. Even if I add the two amounts together put both account number in the reference line comcast will still only deposit the funds into one account. Every month one I write two checks to comcast I get a negative feeling about the company.
Dennis -
Thanks for your post. Hear you loud and clear on the upstream.
As you note, our rollout of DOCSIS 3.0 continues with our new top-end tier hitting 10Mbps on the upstream (50/10).
Not sure where you live but we're pushing to get it done everywhere as soon as possible.
Thanks,
Kevin
Rob –
Great suggestion re: Sharepoint pricing/configuration. We've been thinking about how to make Sharepoint more attractive & impactful. I've shared your insight with my product lead for the MCS suite.
Question for you & other readers:
Beyond the pricing/packaging of users & storage space, are there other things we could do to make the Sharepoint service more attractive? For example, we've considered "Quick Start" configurations to help people get going.
Would enjoy hearing people's thoughts.
Thanks for your post.
Kevin
as a business class customer who works solely in the open source world. the sharepoint and mail services are uninteresting to me and not at all useful. What is interesting and useful is upload speed. I would gladly give up 6mbit/s download for 10mbit synchronous network speed. I do use all of my download at times. but i more frequently hit the top of the upload speed. sadly i'm guessing that ill get docsis 3 at the end of the rollout as im not in a big city.
One of the key uses of Sharepoint is collaborating with people outside of your organization. I use another Sharepoint hosting solution that allows me to create accounts for those partners at no additional cost. If I can only do that with Comcast at the cost of $6.95/user/month, it is of no practical use to me and - I suspect - a good chunk of Comcast Business Class customers.
I suggest you look at other ways of monetizing Sharepoint. Typically, hosts provide a small amount of storage cost for a little money and charge a lot for decent amount. Comcast could differentiate itself by offering their Sharepoint service with a reasonable amount of space upfront, linked to the Exchange accounts already provided for free, and allowing additional, non-exchange Sharepoint accounts to be added for free. Additional storage would be available at a monthly fee.
I believe Comcast currently provides 2 GB of Sharepoint space for free. I think 500 MB would be enough for most users. I would pay $7/month for a gig or two of space. Maybe $15/month for 5 gigs if my needs grew.But it is not practical for me to pay $70/month to allow 10 clients/vendors/etc. to access the space that Comcast already provides.
Thanks,
Rob
Kevin,
We hear from our customers, "when are you going to offer more voice lines and calling features like remote call forwarding?"
Any update on SIP trunks and Feature Set upgrades?
Thanks,
Louis
Jeff -
Thanks for your response. Very helpful insights that I will use to steer future posts. Allow me to call out two items right now though:
In the "innovation" department: DOCSIS 3/Wideband.
This next generation infrastructure radically increases our Internet speeds. Customers in Wideband markets can now get speeds up to 50Mbps downstream and 10Mbps upstream. These speeds are transformational - not unlike the move from dial-up to current High-Speed services. Common tasks like moving large files around simply go that much faster -- anyone dealing with video, images or other large files will be delighted. These speeds also make hosted, "Software as a Service" solutions much more viable. If you've got 10 people all hitting the Internet to get to a shared application, speed is the key to making it a worthwhile experience.
On the "help me compete" front: I'd offer our Hosted Microsoft Sharepoint Service.
To me, productivity is a key aspect of competing effectively which means ensuring colleagues & customers have the most up-to-date information when they need it. Sharepoint is a web-based collaboration system - no VPN or expensive servers required. In its simplest application, it lets you store files in the network where co-workers can access them from any browser-capable computer in the world (office, client site, home, hotel, airport, soccer game...). It can even automatically notify users when a file is added or updated - no more wondering if that email attachment is the latest version of the file. (Sharepoint can do A LOT more than file sharing - I will cover those capabilities in future posts.)
As a Business Class Internet customer, you get your first few Sharepoint seats for free (additional seats are $6.95/mo). If you haven't already done so, just go to https://businessclass.comcast.net and click "Create Account Now" on the right hand side. This will guide you through activating your portal account and your Microsoft Services including Sharepoint.
Thanks again! I'll post more soon on these topics and others.
Kevin
Great first post. Any sense of new innovations you can share with current and potential customers that make small businesses realize Comcast is thinking one step ahead would be great. That would be a good reason to check in early and often.
As a small business owner, I want to know how you can help me compete. I don't have the time to totally understand the product all the time, especially as features are added. Quick updates of new product improvements would be a another great reason to check in regularly.
Thanks for asking - wish you luck and look forward to reading more.