How do I get a technician to actually show up for an appointment?

My mom is 84 years old. She’s still active and in generally good health for someone her age. As a social person, COVID has been hard on her. It has curtailed her social life significantly. Even though the pandemic is not as significant as it was, for an 84-year-old with a heart condition, it’s still a real risk. Since she’s kind of stuck at home with her dog. Her main joys in life are watching the Yankees beat the Giants, A’s and Dodgers (the favorite teams of her family members); taking care of her dog; playing computer games; and keeping in contact with friends and family on social media.

She’s a long time Comcast Xfinity Internet customer. Last week her Internet started getting intermittent. It would stop working and when she did what her son who works in IT told her to do, reboot it, that seemed to solve the problem for a few hours. Unfortunately, on Saturday, June 24, 2023, it died completely. No number of reboots would help. So, she did what every other Xfinity customer did, she called support. The support technician did the usual troubleshooting, which is pretty difficult for an 84-year-old, but she persevered and got through it. The Customer Service person said it seemed like her modem was bad. That’s the replacement modem for the last bad modem from a few months back. The Customer Service person told her to go to Comcast in her town and pick up a new modem. Because she hadn’t had the new modem for very long, the agent said they wouldn’t charge her for it.

When she got the new modem home, she hooked it up in place of the old one, and once again called Xfinity Support to activate the modem. After a couple of hours on the phone following their instructions, the new Customer Service agent decided that they were going to need to dispatch a technician and made an appointment for a few days later. Unfortunately, no technician came at the appointed time. Mom had a friend call Xfinity Support again and they said they couldn’t find a scheduled appointment but that they would make one for her. They gave her two different time windows and said if they technician couldn’t make the first one, they would make the second. No Xfinity technician arrived for either appointment.

So she called her son who works in IT. He shared her frustration, particularly since when the last modem died, it had taken a couple of calls to Xfinity Support to actually get a technician to show up. So, he did what many people do, he tagged Comcast on Twitter complaining about the missed appointments. The folks at @Comcast referred him to @XfinitySupport. So, he tweeted and tagged the new contact. They expressed concern about her issue and asked the son to Direct Message them so they could help. Their first recommendation was to get the son added to the account so they could talk to him about the issue. Mom once again called Xfinity Support and was able to get him added.

The Xfinity Support social media team said they found 5 appointments that had been scheduled for someone to come out to Mom’s house, but that they had all been canceled. No one ever called, texted, or emailed mom that appointments were being canceled. Xfinity ignored the son’s question about that. The social media team said they’d make an appointment for her. Shortly after that, Mom received an email about preparing for her appointment which didn’t say when the appointment was. When her son asked Xfinity when the appointment was for, they directed him to a link on their website’s support area to view appointments. This ended up being a chat session with an agent.

After waiting for an agent to come online, the agent said they didn’t see any evidence of the appointment that the social media team had supposedly created, but they would create one for her. Surprisingly they said they could set an appointment for an hour later that very day. The son was surprised and thrilled. He told Mom she had an appointment. During the chat session with Aman, the Customer Service rep, they gave the son a CR number which was supposed to be confirmation number for the appointment. The agent assured the son that there really was an appointment and that an agent would be there shortly to fix Mom’s Internet. The agent said to stay on the line as they gave instructions to the technician and it was at that point where they disconnected and the son was back in the queue to talk to an agent.

About 20 minutes later, a new agent came online, read the previous conversation and said that they didn’t see that an appointment had been scheduled but that they would be happy to schedule an appointment. They appreciated the son’s frustration and would definitely help make an appointment. They scheduled an appointment for July 6th (a week later). They also said because Mom had picked up a new modem in the last 30 days, she would have to pay $70 for the professional installation service, but that the agent would credit her bill for that $70. So once again, things seemed to be moving forward, but neither Mom nor her son were actually confident that a technician would show up on 7/6.

To confirm the appointment, the son once again contacted the Xfinity Support social media team. Their response and I quote:

I apologize for the negative experience you had. It is not the kind of experience we aim to provide for our customers. After reviewing your account, I noticed that there is currently no available date for a technician to visit. However, I have set a reminder to update you on your schedule by tomorrow. Alternatively, you can use the link below to reschedule the appointment to a time that works best for you. How does that sound?

To be honest, that didn’t sound very good at all. How could there be “no available date”? After a few DMs about the incredulity of Xfinity not even being able to set a date weeks out. They provided canned responses about being sorry for the inconvenience and that they would provide regular updates on when an appointment would be available. Yeah, sure.

Unfortunately, Mom doesn’t really have much in the way of options. She could try to get LTE Internet but she lives in a rural area that doesn’t really have good coverage. She could try to get Starlink, but again, that requires purchasing the Starlink setup and getting someone to install the dish. I'd appreciate anyone, either in Comcast or outside who could help me with this issue.