Customer service reps are telling callers that a day before unveiling a price hike, managers told them to expect some angry calls. A Wall Street analyst has accused Netflix of being unprepared for backlash. 
 
 (Credit: Netflix) 
 
 Netflix managers knew some customers would be unhappy with the company's decision to raise prices, and a day before announcing the fee increase they told customer-service personnel to be prepared for angry callers. 
 
 Some of Netflix's customer-service representatives told subscribers today that they added extra employees in the department to help handle the flood of calls, many of them emotional, the employees said. Hundreds of Netflix employees were answering phones today and that still wasn't enough to prevent some callers from experiencing extended delays before speaking to a Netflix employee, the reps told customers. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Starting in September, the company will no longer offer users the ability to access both streaming video and by-mail DVDs for $9.99 a month. Netflix said Tuesday that it was splitting each distribution mode into two separate subscription plans, each costing $7.99 per month. To receive both, subscribers must pay $15.98. The announcement saw the company's blog fill up with 4,000 responses, most of them negative. Over the past couple days, there was speculation that Netflix didn't anticipate how the price increase would anger some customers. 
 
 Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey confirmed that Netflix had indeed prepared employees to receive a certain amount of calls from those unhappy with the hike. Swasey said Netflix did not go into this with its eyes closed. 
 
 "We tested, we researched, we analyzed," Swasey told CNET this evening. "We knew what the reaction would be. We are not surprised. We knew that there would be some people upset by the service and with the price being adjusted." 
 
 Rich Greenfield, a Wall Street analyst with BTIG Research, conducted a test of how Netflix's customer service department was handling calls following the announcement. In a report issued today, Greenfield said he learned Netflix was being overwhelmed by calls. He said BTIG made 35 calls over two hours and waited on hold typically between 9 minutes and 15 minutes. 
 
 Greenfield also said he was unhappy with the response from Netflix employees. He wrote that they suggest to those who threaten to cancel their subscription that they should wait until September, when the plan is due to take effect. 
 
 "There was simply no promo or 'save' technique to offer us a discount to retain our business," Greenfield wrote. "This would appear to illustrate that Netflix is simply not concerned with the prospect of losing customers." 
 
 I called Netflix's customer-service number this evening. I waited 9 minutes on hold and was greeted by a male employee who was polite. The Netflix employee said that he was instructed not to rush anybody off the phone and to hear people out--their complaints or suggestions--and to process cancellations if that was what they wanted. He acknowledged that there were a lot of extra people working the phones and that there seemed to be a lot more callers than reps. 
 
 What everybody wants to know is, are the scores of complaints to the company and those being posted around the Web enough to convince Netflix to backpedal or offer a concession? It doesn't sound that way. 
 
 When asked these questions, Swasey said: "These are our prices." ||||| Last week Ryan Block, the former editor of Engadget, called Comcast to disconnect his cable and Internet service. His intention was to shift to Astound, a local provider in the San Francisco Bay Area. 
 
 The result defines what's wrong with Comcast, and underscores why the Federal Communications Commission and the Dept. of Justice should refuse to allow it to get any bigger. 
 
 Block has posted online the last eight minutes and 14 seconds of what he reports was a nearly 20-minute ordeal. You can listen to it here, or click on "The Comcast service call from hell" below. 
 
 Essentially, the Comcast representative, speaking from the cable giant's "retention department," refused to follow through unless Block told him why he wanted to cancel the service. You can hear the rep demanding an explanation with panic rising in his voice. He wheedles endlessly, treating Block as a nincompoop who can't understand that Comcast's service is so far superior to Astound's that only an idiot would consider switching. 
 
 At one point he says it's all about improving Comcast's service. "I'm trying to help my company be better," the rep tells Block. "That's my job. 
 
 "I can guarantee you right now, you're doing an incredibly good job at helping your company be worse," Block replies. 
 
 I can guarantee you right now, you're doing an incredibly good job at helping your company be worse. — Ryan Block, to an insistent Comcast phone rep 
 
 Block did the young man a favor by keeping his name confidential. Perhaps this is out of empathy. As John Herrmann of The Awl puts it, "If you understand this call as a desperate interaction between two people, rather than a business transaction between a customer and a company, the pain is mutual. The customer service rep is trapped in an impossible position, in which any cancellation, even one he can't control, will reflect poorly on his performance." 
 
 Comcast told Sam Gustin of Motherboard that it's "investigating this situation" and maintains that this isn't how its customer reps are supposed to behave. 
 
 But what the episode shows is the necessity of killing Comcast's pending deal to absorb Time Warner Cable, a combination of the nation's No. 1 and No. 2 cable/Internet providers that would make Comcast even less responsive to its customers' needs than it is now. The deal will be reviewed by the FCC and the Dept. of Justice. This call should be part of the evidence package placed before both agencies, and before Congress too. 
 
 Block told Gustin that his objection to Comcast stems from the company's government lobbying and its monopolistic behavior; since he has the "extraordinarily rare luxury" of being able to switch to an alternative provider without moving his home, he chose to take advantage of it. 
 
 Most Americans have only one option for cable service — whichever cable firm owns the monopoly in their neighborhood. If the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger goes through, America comes more under the thumb of a single cable operator, and its phone reps will be even more noxious than the one Ryan Block encountered. 
 
 Keep up to date with The Economy Hub by following @hiltzikm.
– Well, now we know what a portion of those new, higher Netflix fees could be used for: to pay call center reps to deal with angry customers. Customer service reps have been telling callers that the company not only told them to be ready for a backlash, it hired extra employees to take the calls, CNET reports. “We tested, we researched, we analyzed. We knew what the reaction was going to be,” a spokesman confirmed. “We are not surprised.” Despite the extra manpower, the phone lines have been overwhelmed. One analyst found that it took representatives nine to 15 minutes to get to the many callers on hold. When they did pick up, their suggestion was to just cancel in September, when the price increase hits. “There was simply no promo or 'save' technique to … retain our business,” he complained, indicating that “Netflix is simply not concerned with the prospect of losing customers.” But hey, it’s not all bad news, Netflix users: The company has renewed its deal with NBC Universal, so at least you can stream new episodes of 30 Rock.