Comcast will soon show technician arrival times via app

Comcast has announced a new service it likely hopes will win it some favor with often-disgruntled customers — a mobile app that shows when, exactly, a service technician will be arriving. Users will be able to see this information through Comcast's MyAccount app, and though it will only be available near Boston initially, the service provider is looking to expand it to more customers next year. For now, the program is in an initial trial stage, and the service provider promises to update on what it finds during it.

The new feature was shown off by company CEO Brian Roberts last week in San Francisco, and you can see an example of what it looks like in the GIF below. The service provider had previously trimmed its technicians' service windows down to a maximum of two hours, but waiting that long still takes a big chunk of time out of one's day.

Comcast says that two hour service window isn't good enough, and that with the MyAccount app feature users will be able to see precisely when the technician arrives, down to the minute. The catch, however, is that they'll only know once the technician is 30 minutes from arriving.

A notification will arrive through the app when the technician is about half an hour away, at which point the customer can keep track of their location on a map. This way, customers are free to go out and do whatever they need to do, only having to come home once a notification arrives.

SOURCE: Washington Post