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posted by LaminatorX on Monday November 24 2014, @12:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-in-time-contractor dept.

US cable giant Comcast is offering some subscribers an app that tracks the whereabouts of its technicians before they arrive for a service appointment. So if you're waiting around for ages wondering where he or she is, there'll be a light at the end of the tunnel.

The ISP said its MyAccount app, available on iOS and Android devices, would soon add the real-time tracking feature.

According to Comcast ( http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/my-account-app-technician ), it will activate when the technician reports in as being 30 minutes away within the target two-hour appointment period. Users will then be able to track the technician's vehicle on a map to better gauge where they are.

Currently, Comcast is testing out the feature in the Boston area. No date for a full roll-out has been given.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/comcast_tracking_app/

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  • (Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Monday November 24 2014, @12:20PM

    by q.kontinuum (532) on Monday November 24 2014, @12:20PM (#119382) Journal

    ... However, I'd be one of the first to start screaming if my employer'd start this kind of surveillance on me.

    --
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    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Horse With Stripes on Monday November 24 2014, @12:27PM

      by Horse With Stripes (577) on Monday November 24 2014, @12:27PM (#119384)

      Agreed, but most service technicians aren't "employees". The vast majority of them are now "independent contractors". Low pay, no benefits, and now tracked like a wild animal.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by cmn32480 on Monday November 24 2014, @12:35PM

      by cmn32480 (443) <reversethis-{moc.liamg} {ta} {08423nmc}> on Monday November 24 2014, @12:35PM (#119388) Journal

      Their trucks are generally tracked by fleet management software.

      They almost certainly have smart phones.

      They are being tracked to hell and back anyway. Why not give the customer access during a small window so we can plan properly?

      --
      "It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
      • (Score: 2) by Common Joe on Tuesday November 25 2014, @05:30AM

        by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday November 25 2014, @05:30AM (#119704) Journal

        Why not give the customer access during a small window so we can plan properly?

        I don't like the description of the app. It is dangerously close to letting the next customer know where I, the current customer, live.

        30 minutes to get to the next house? Don't they have someone closer than half way across town? Don't they plan things better?

        This is a management issue, not a service technician issue. This app does not account for the technician that encounters the 5 hour job followed by the 5 minute job... even though both were listed as the same thing on their schedule. They have the data to predict how long these things take. One would think a real statistician would be make able to make the process sing.

    • (Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday November 24 2014, @03:35PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday November 24 2014, @03:35PM (#119434)

      If they could bother to show up on time, we wouldn't need this kind of tracking.

      Though I expect it is the dispatchers are the ones overbooking the installers and the guys on the truck can do little about it since they are probably paid per-job.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 24 2014, @04:00PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 24 2014, @04:00PM (#119444)

        Also unlike assembly line work, there is no way to predict a job ahead of time unless they went nuts and just did complete rewires on all jobs (which would be expensive and very time consuming)

        So sometimes a little old lady dislodged the F connector while dusting and you can make her a nice new jumper from the wall to the box in about 3 minutes and be done. Or someone dumped a cup of water into the settop box and didn't want to admit to it over the phone, so a swap is five minutes and done. Other times who knows water damage means a couple hour job basically reinstalling, fishing lines thru walls and madness like that. Maybe its an upstream problem and it takes 5 minutes to discover a fiber problem to the whole subdivision and done. You won't find out till you get there.

        The only time you know when an appointment will happen is the tech's first job of the day. Assuming he doesn't call in sick. And assuming he's a contractor, he doesn't have a 6 times more lucrative "real electrician task" to attend to.

        The standard car analogy is its like predicting how long it'll take to repair a car problem. What kind? How long? Well you figure that out once you start working on it, and not until after that point.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @06:49PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @06:49PM (#119508)
          if only there was a digital device at the end of every single wire and nodes placed at intervals on the wire that could report on the health of the network.

          crazy...
  • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Monday November 24 2014, @12:41PM

    by Dunbal (3515) on Monday November 24 2014, @12:41PM (#119390)

    ...
    return("Sleeping in his truck around the block from your house");
    ...

  • (Score: 1) by lentilla on Monday November 24 2014, @02:26PM

    by lentilla (1770) on Monday November 24 2014, @02:26PM (#119408)

    I can easily live with "a technician will be at your premises between 10:30 and 12:30". What I can't abide is broken promises. I don't see any benefit to having a thirty minute countdown - only problems:

    1. Instead of getting on with your day (quite often your half-day out of the office specially for this appointment) you'll spend two hours sitting in front of the computer pressing "Refresh".
    2. The penalty for not turning up on time (from the technician's perspective) will be worse with the tracker. Without the tracker they would simply shrug and re-book. Now, they are dealing with an irate customer screaming "you were just around the block thirty minutes ago!".
    3. As a consequence of the above, any rational technician will only activate the tracker when they are outside their next appointment. If it activates remotely, they'll have to game the system. (The summary says "when the technician reports in as being 30 minutes away" which means they'll "report in" after parking at their next appointment just prior to unloading their toolbox.)

    Micromanagement is a disease. It's only human to want to feel in control of the situation but at some point we have to trust others. The "person" we don't trust in this case is Comcast and it seems manifestly unfair to leave technicians to face what is; essentially; customers' pent up rage against an un-woundable bureaucracy.

    All this could be avoided through honest business dealings. That's empowering to the customer. That makes the customer feel good and in control. Now one way to go about it is to direct customers' agitation and distrust onto the hapless technician trying to blitz through their day's work. The more honest approach is to schedule appointments realistically, phone the customer if the technician won't make the appointment but best of all: recompense the customer; without question or excuse; if the technician isn't able to make the appointment. It doesn't even have to be much - a token amount would speak volumes about trust and respect. Bonus points: every time Comcast stuffed up, a customer would report to their friends that they were paid as a result - turning an existent service delivery issue and subsequently missed appointment slot into an overall positive customer experience. You can't buy that kind of good will. (Well, you can - I just detailed how to :-) )

    • (Score: 2) by morgauxo on Monday November 24 2014, @02:33PM

      by morgauxo (2082) on Monday November 24 2014, @02:33PM (#119410)

      Or...

      They will just half-ass every job to make sure they are out on time. They will never be late to your house.. but they will never permanently fix the problem either!

      • (Score: 1) by lentilla on Monday November 24 2014, @03:12PM

        by lentilla (1770) on Monday November 24 2014, @03:12PM (#119424)

        They will just half-ass every job

        Too late for that. I think that "optimisation" happened some while back. Give the PHBs some credit!

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday November 24 2014, @03:51PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 24 2014, @03:51PM (#119440)

      Or a better demarc point. Or more accurately, any demarc point at all. Toward the end of the era of landline phones, they installed a box on the side of your house you could plug a phone into. If that works, the problem is inside wiring and you'll have to pay more / schedule differently. If the phone doesn't work at the demarc point, the problem is telco. Then again, the demarc being on the side of your house means there is no need for access inside your house, so let someone show up any ole time the sun is up, or after sundown if pre-arranged.

      If there's an inside wiring problem, any electrical goofball can fix that, no need to contact the cableco. On the other hand if the problem is upstream of the demarc then the cableco is needed.

      This business model is the same as how your electrical power is provided. Depending on state tariff and regulation or lack thereof, your power meter is probably your demarc point for electrical service. Its a business model that works pretty well.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @02:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @02:50PM (#119418)

    Fuck em, eh? According to Wikkypedia only 65 percent of Yanks had one in 2013. [1]

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone#Smartphone_usage [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @05:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @05:19PM (#119470)

      Yes, it annoys me to hell when certain features are only available via their smartphone app even if there is no technical reason.

      Normally I will shun these apps/services but if there is a critical need I'll load it up on a tablet run wireshark and intercept their "api" calls to/from webserver to get the functionally I need from a standard pc browser.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @03:19PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 24 2014, @03:19PM (#119427)

    the strip club, the donut shop, the gay bar...

  • (Score: 2) by SuperCharlie on Monday November 24 2014, @04:51PM

    by SuperCharlie (2939) on Monday November 24 2014, @04:51PM (#119460)

    Surely we can empathize enough to realize this level of scrutiny is naturally abhorrent.

  • (Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Monday November 24 2014, @05:31PM

    by arashi no garou (2796) on Monday November 24 2014, @05:31PM (#119474)

    Aren't most Comcast techs contractors anyway? Why would they be bothered to get to your house any faster, tracking app or not? I know the ones who came out for a line repair at my job (we have Comcast Business Class) took their sweet time, and while they were really nice and knowledgeable guys they were far from professional. I half expected one of them to pull out a bag of Cheetos and a Surge soda and crash on the conference room couch playing WoW. Their van, obviously personally owned by the lead tech, looked like it had survived two Mad Max movies.

    I just don't get why Comcast even bothers, unless they are planning to move away from third party contractors and build a fleet of techs they employ, instead.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday November 24 2014, @09:05PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 24 2014, @09:05PM (#119554) Journal
    In Boulder, Colorado [soylentnews.org]
    --
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