You Can Buy Cable TV Through Amazon Now
Comcast has struck a big online retail partnership. The media conglomerate has begun selling its Xfinity TV, phone, and Internet services through Amazon. Comcast's service bundles are available through Amazon.com's recently debuted Amazon Cable Store, a web page whose existence was first reported on Sunday by the television news outlets TV Predictions. Comcast customers have long complained about the company's shoddy customer service. "We're improving dramatically, but we can always do better," said Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast, at Fortune's Global Forum conference this year. Now the company is tapping Amazon's expertise to make its online sales and support interactions smoother. "They helped us in our thinking about how to simplify the experience and just make it clean," said Neil Smit, president of Comcast's cable division, in an interview with the Wall Street Journalfor instance, by minimizing the number of clicks per transaction. "We're partnering with a company that's so good at the customer experienceI think that's really what excites me.", The two companies struck the deal over the course of a year following a discussion Roberts and Smit had with Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, the Journal reports. The terms dictate that Amazon will take an undisclosed cut of each new subscriber sale, according to the Journal, which cites an unnamed source familiar with the deal. For customers, the prices offered through the new sales channel and existing ones will remain the same, Comcast said.