View From the Phlipside - Worst Company in America

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

Given the image conscious nature of big business these days I can well imagine that there are few things that would haunt a corporate CEO more than being named “The Worst Company in America” by a high profile media source.  That’s what you’d think but there may actually be something worse than that.  I mean the fact that you made the list almost certainly means that you have a fair number of people who aren’t happy with your work, your product and/or your service.  And that’s a bad thing.  But what if it became known that instead of actually trying to be better at whatever it is that you do turns out you just decided to cheat?  It appears that cable TV giant Comcast may have done just that.

The poll in question is run by the consumer advocate website called “The Consumerist”.  Taking their cue from the recently ended March Madness basketball tournament they pair up corporate giants into brackets of head to head competition and let visitors vote on who’s the worst.  So you end up with Toyota vs BP, Microsoft vs Apple, GameStop vs Walmart, United/Continental airlines vs Delta and so on.  32 companies making the tournament to start.  None of whom want to be there or to “win” it all.

Comcast got to cut down the metaphorical net last year and clearly didn’t want to win it again.  But instead of making improvements on their much maligned customer service (at least not enough to eliminate them from nomination) they urged employees to try and rig the voting.

Now the reality is that prior to the beginning of this commentary you’d probably never even heard of this vote before.  It’s NOT that big a deal.  At least it wasn’t until some corporate suit decided to over react and make his company look like complete idiots.  If you want to make sure you don’t win you make a big announcement about how you’re improving customer service.  Not get caught trying to cover the whole thing over.

As it turns out they may not be any better at cheating than at taking care of their customers.  Comcast has “advanced into the Round of 8 and could be on their way to a repeat championship.  And they just might deserve it.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011