The contrast between the new Xfinity Store in north Wilmington and other customer locations of the company are striking.
Gone is the no-nonsense atmosphere and the teller cages where customers pay bills and turn in equipment.
Instead, the 5,000-square-foot store off Concord Pike features a low-stress atmosphere, hardwood floors, comfortable seating and interactive displays of TVs and mobile devices.
Bills can still be paid in person or through a self-service kiosk.
Jennifer Bilotta, senior director of public relations for Comcast, said the store is part of Comcast’s long-term plans to improve its customer service and customer experience. Plans for the store have been in the works for years with customer groups providing input.
Comcast also faces competition from AT&T, which now owns the DirectTV satellite system as well as Verizon FiOS. Pressures from FiOS have eased as the company has slowed down its build-out of the fiber-optic system, which excludes the city of Wilmington.
A bigger threat comes from tech-savvy young consumers dropping cable and going to streaming services that run through broadband Internet. Cable networks, like ESPN and HBO, are beginning to bundle services for streamers, with Netflix and Amazon offering original programming.
Customer service has long been a thorn in the side of Comcast as it grew to into the nation’s largest cable provider, with a controlling interest in TV and theme park giant NBC Universal. The company’s new logo features NBC’s well-known peacock.
Dreams of becoming even larger were dashed when federal authorities signaled their opposition to a merger with Time Warner Cable. Time Warner Cable, a company with an even worse reputation for customer care. Jokes about Time Warner Cable have long been a mainstay of late night talk show hosts.
Slated to acquire Time Warner Cable is smaller Charter Communications, which owned the Middletown cable system for many years, but sold that property off before an overdue conversion to broadband service.
Bilotta also points to services like home security/home automation and Xfinity TV Go that can be better demonstrated at the store. The security system can often be used without a big installation effort and allows lights to be turned on and off from a mobile device.
TV Go allows customers to stream their favorite shows via Wi-FI connection wherever they go. At the Concord Pike store, customers can try out the service on available tablet devices.
Another new attraction according to Bilotta, is Xfinity’s voice remote control, the first big technology breakthrough in decades for the living room mainstay.
“We are thrilled to open our first Xfinity Store in the First State and we look forward to opening more locations soon so that we can provide our customers with a more welcoming, efficient and interactive experience,” said Jim Samaha, senior vice president for Comcast’s Freedom Region at the announcement of the store’s opening last month. “This is another way we are working to make it even easier for customers to do business with us.”
There are only about 150 Xfinity retail stores in the U.S. The Freedom Region of Comcast in the Philadelphia area has opened a total of nine Xfinity Stores to date.
The stores are good news for the local retail leasing market, which has remained flat in recent years.
The leasing market also aids Comcast, which may be able to fetch good deals on space and has shareholders to think about. Comcast has typically operated its return and payment business in low-cost retail or office park space.
Bilotta says no new locations in Delaware are on the immediate horizon. The company also maintains a legacy drop-off and bill payment center in New Castle, Dover, and Seaford.
Comcast serves most of Delaware, with pockets of service in the Middletown under the control of Atlantic Broadband, and Mediacom operating in portions of Sussex County.
Bilotta noted that the store is available for customers of Comcast Business, although company representatives typically meet with customers onsite.
The company sees continued opportunities to grow Comcast Business, which offers an array of services that many small companies need these days including a public WiFi system.
Comcast Business also operates a separate customer service system that has earned high marks. It also has service offerings that range from Internet, phone and TV for the tiniest businesses to high-capacity data services for large corporations.
Comcast also operates the region’s largest network of Wi-Fi hotspots.
The new Xfinity Store is open seven days a week – Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.
