4 hours waiting to get an appointment

I started trying to contact xfinity at about 5:15 PDT today. Apparently live chat and phone are no longer available. The robot chat is super un-helpful if you need to schedule an appointment or troubleshoot something that is not a vanilla problem.

So, I downloaded the messenger app and started "conversing" with Ryan (see the transcript below). After about 3.5 hours of getting nowhere and getting a response from Ryan about every 30 minutes (his first response took almost 2 hours) I pretty much gave up. At about that time Ryan went radio silent - I think his shift was over and the chat got handed to BeccaD.

I finally called 1-800-xfinity and went through the voicemail menu - pretty similar and just as miserable as the robot chat. After hitting 0 about 8 times I finally got to a person that could actually schedule an appointment. 

This has honestly been the absolute worst customer experience I've ever encountered. In some cases I've been disappointed with companies but at least it has taken less than 30 minutes for them to accomplish that. This has been 4+ hours of sheer frustration. 

As I mentioned in my chat with the rep (at 3 hrs and 45m), I don't know if your competitors have any better service but at this point I am certainly going to investigate their products.

Hi! Thank you for reaching out to Xfinity Support! Your current Queue Position is 76 and one of our valued team members will be with you as soon as possible. There may be a delay while we connect you to a specialist, so while you are being connected, please provide your name, address and a brief explanation of how we can help. We thank you for your patience and look forward to working on a solution together. If you navigate away from this session, please return as soon as you can.

‎5:45 PM

Name:REDACTED  Issue: I have rebooted and reset my television box nearly every day for the past week. I think it needs to be replaced.

‎5:56 PM

Hello?

‎6:19 PM

it's been over 30 minutes and I have no idea where I am in the queue

‎6:20 PM

It has been over an hour now. Can someone please call me at REDACTED as I need to move away from the computer.

‎6:53 PM

and...we are now at 2 hours

‎7:47 PM

wtf...

‎7:48 PM

Hello, Paul. Hopefully, you are having a wonderful day! You have come to the right place to get your services taken care of. I truly appreciate you taking the time out of your day to reach out to us and for being a customer of ours. We are a little different around here as we are not an instant chat solution, but we love to provide the best customer service to our customers. We like to keep everything through this platform as we like to keep the history through our conversations with this platform. I would love to find out what is going on with your TV. Can you tell me a bit more about what is occurring? -Ryan

‎7:52 PM

i have had to reboot my television cable box nearly every day for the past week.

‎7:54 PM

and honestly waiting for 2 hours with no indication of where I am in the queue is really bad service.

‎7:55 PM

and here I am waiting again

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

‎7:59 PM

sorry...all those "y" s were push-to-talk on another app

‎8:00 PM

Hey there! We are still here to assist. I apologize for the delay. Before we proceed, I would like to clear the air and provide peace of mind regarding the delay. Our group operates a bit differently than an instant chat service. There can be a bit of a delay in our messages. That said, we are fully committed to assisting you with any questions or concerns. If you need to step away from our conversation while waiting for a response, you are welcome to use the link provided in the Facebook message to check back in and respond when you are ready. Our conversation will not disconnect if you close and reopen the page.

I will need to get your account verified by sending you a six-digit code to your phone or email. Which one would be best for you? No problems I can understand that. I sometimes know my text messages will change my wording and I didn't realize it. -Ryan

‎8:02 PM

phone please

‎8:03 PM

[Edited: "Personal Information"]

‎8:05 PM

Thank you for sharing this information with us. I truly appreciate you being a customer of ours since 2001 with this account. I would love to get your TV services taken care of. I know you have stated that you constantly have to restart your TV services. Can I ask why you have to restart it constantly? Is the TV freezing or something? -Ryan

‎8:11 PM

the service does not connect and then tells me to first check that the cables are tight, etc. and then reboot.

‎8:13 PM

i'm almost done with xfinity after 20 years. it is impossible to get someone "live" on the phone or on chat...super disappointing

‎8:14 PM

it's taken 2.5 hours to speak with you and i get responses every 10 minutes

‎8:19 PM

That is really strange, I have looked at the health check of your TV and it looks great. Do you mind if I send some signals to your TV to see if we can get this taken care of for you? -Ryan

‎8:22 PM

it is not fine...it asking me to reboot again. feel free to send a signal

‎8:23 PM

as I said, it will work but only after I reboot it each day (for the past week)

‎8:24 PM

and...waiting again

‎8:26 PM

Ryan, I understand you have a lot of people you need to support but you need to tell your management that the lag in dealing with your customers will drive them to other services

‎8:28 PM

Thank you for allowing me to send some signals to your TV, can you tell me if this is happening on multiple TVs? -Ryan

‎8:39 PM

since the main box is down, the other tv has no signal either;

‎8:39 PM

the service will work fine for 12 hours, then when you try to watch something the next day you have to either reboot or reset. that and the massive delays on speaking with someone to sort it out are seriously going to drive me to another service

‎8:42 PM

Are you getting a live video when you get this error of the cable not being connected? -Ryan

‎8:47 PM

no

‎8:48 PM

the cable is connected...it is telling me to tighten it which is a bunch of crap...and now we are at over 3 hours and you and comcast have done nothing

‎9:05 PM

are you done for the day? it's now been almost 4 hours since my first contact.

‎9:32 PM

Can you confirm the serial number on the cable box you are having the issue with? Have you recently upgraded or swapped the cable box? -BeccaD

‎9:38 PM

i can't. after waiting for just about 4 hours, i somehow found a number to call at xfinity.

‎9:39 PM

I'm sorry to say, Becca, that this has honestly been the worst service I've ever experienced. I know it is not your fault but it is absolutely deplorable.

‎9:40 PM

I am very sorry for any upset or frustration that the delay may have caused you. On this platform, we are not the typical live chat format. There may be delays in our responses as we support our customers as their messages come in, and then we do need time to research and type our responses. I would love the opportunity to help you if you have not already reached someone on the phone. I will be standing by to help if you need me. -BeccaD

‎9:46 PM

Please explain to me how to get to the live chat then. Your current portal has obfuscated the entire process. I could find no live chat and had to download the third-party Messenger app to even get to this forum. There are no obvious phone numbers published on the site any longer, either. I have no idea how well your competitors do with service but I am strongly leaning towards finding out after 20 years with xfinity.