Comcast to sell services via Amazon, with customer service in Spokane area

Comcast announced a deal Monday to sell its Xfinity TV, Internet and phone services on Amazon.com, with Comcast’s new Spokane-area call center handling the customer service.

The deal should make it easier for customers to order Xfinity services, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Amazon worked with Comcast to streamline ordering, that report says, and eventually could suggest Comcast services to go along with products bought through Amazon, like TVs.

A Comcast news release said Amazon is “a brand that’s unrivaled when it comes to customer service.”

That’s an area where Comcast has stumbled in recent years, prompting an announcement last year that the company would build three new call centers in a push to improve its customer service. Besides the Spokane-area call center, the new center in Tucson, Arizona, will also handle customer service for the Xfinity-Amazon deal, the release said.

The local call center has opened in a temporary location at 2818 N. Sullivan Road in Spokane Valley while the company builds an 80,000-square-foot facility in Liberty Lake. That $7 million project is expected to be finished by this summer.

Comcast employs 450 at the temporary call center and expects to grow to 750 employees in Liberty Lake by next year, spokesman Walter Neary said.

The company said in the news release that prices offered on Amazon.com will be identical to those available on the company’s website or over the phone. At the start, sales over Amazon will only be available to new customers, but that could expand to current customers by the end of the year.

At amazon.com/cablestore, customers specify what services they’re after, select equipment, go through a credit check, then schedule installation. Amazon gets a fee for each sale made through its website, the Wall Street Journal reported.