Comcast Looks to Cut Service Call Wait Times With New Technician Tracking Tool

We've all been there, stuck sitting at home waiting for the service tech to come out because our phone, internet or cable hasn't been working. Often times we are held hostage with a 'service window' that generally runs between 2 and 4 hours with no option but to still and wait. Now it appears as though we may see some changes, at least for Comcast wait times.

In Thursday blog post titled "Your time is valuable; we don't want to waste it," Comcast customer service chief Charlie Herrin detailed a new service that will give customers alerts 30 minutes before a technician shows up. This new feature, which will be available for free through Comcast's MyAccount app.

This is how it works. Customers with scheduled appointments will be alerted through the App on their smartphone when the Comcast technician is about 30 minutes away from arriving at their house, and will be able to track this technician’s progress on a map. This means no more sitting around waiting, as you can check the tech's progress from just about anywhere. So you can run those short errands and still be back in time to let them in!

Comcast also promises that if they are running late, which we all know all too often an happens, they will let those customers know that as well, and provide real-time status updates so they can plan accordingly.

Currently the App and service is on beta trial for those customers in the Boston area. However, Comcast hopes that with their feedback they will be able to refine the service and get it up and running in other areas soon.