NCTA: Comcast Teams with Best Buy for Residential Services Installation

Comcast Corp. now is working with Best Buy’s Geek Squad to provide custom installations for residential customers. Custom installations include those for digital voice, broadband and video, which vary depending on individual needs of customers and the layout of their homes.

Installation of services for customers has been an expensive and resource-intensive process for Comcast. Customers complained about the amount of time installs take, problems in scheduling them and their often disruptive nature.

“We’ve been in a test with Comcast to do customized installs in six markets and both sides are very pleased,” said Chad Bell, merchandise manager for access services for Best Buy. “The power of our people is pretty impressive. Our research shows that installation is a key item consumers want better help with.”

Typically, service providers use their own staff to install and repair services and service bundles. The Comcast-Geek Squad test may be designed to spare workers and reduce costs.

The Geek Squad is a group of tech-savvy Best Buy workers that advise in-store customers on consumer electronic products and communications services, though their main function is to be dispatched in their Volkswagon Bugs and vans to customers’ homes to perform installations.

Comcast would not divulge the markets in which Best Buy’s Geek Squad teams provide services. However, Robert Fraught, senior vice-president of retail and alternate channel sales said Chicago is on the list. It’s unclear whether the services will be offered beyond the six markets.

Comcast’s Faught said he oversees a 125-person field force which trains the “red shirts and blue shirts” inside retail stores to install the service, claiming the deal with Best Buy is “needed to ramp up this process.”

Neither Best Buy nor Comcast said if the undertaking had saved the operator time or money. Neither would say if there’s a revenue sharing model for the partnership.

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines