by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
Following its merger with AT&T Broadband Monday, Comcast of Northeast Florida named Doug McMillan as its new area vice president and general manager for Jacksonville.
With McMillan’s arrival, Comcast, which currently serves over 2.9 million customers in the Southern I division and 250,000 customers in Northeast Florida alone, promises a newly strengthened commitment to customer service. Progress has already been made on the construction of a state-of-the-art call center located on Southpoint Parkway, which will soon employ an expanded staff and maintain hours of operation on a 24/7 basis.
“One thing that we realize at Comcast,” said McMillan, 45, “is that we are in the business of customer service. What I believe is most important for the Jacksonville community to know about Comcast is that we believe that cable is a local business that should be run locally.”
McMillan commented that, formerly, customer service calls were fielded in locations as far away as Miami.
“We believe we can answer calls in Jacksonville better than anywhere else,” said McMillan. “The people answering our phones are in Jacksonville. They go to same grocery stores and churches as our customers. They know what Jacksonville is like and what it’s about.”
McMillan began his career in communications over 25 years ago, working on satellites for the Army. After his three-year stint ended in 1979, he was able to attend night class through the GI Bill, allowing him to earn a bachelor’s degree from Shorter College in Rome, Ga. From there, his understanding of both satellites and cable systems brought him to Crystal River, where he worked for a company known as Televents of Florida.
McMillan and Comcast finally crossed paths six years ago. That union has taken him to places in Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia, where he also served as a vice president and general manager.
By the end of the year, McMillan hopes to have the entire Comcast system rebuilt and to continue maintaining a level of excellence with his management team.
“It’s important to all of us here at Comcast to empower our management team. Hopefully this will allow them to make the right decisions when they need to be made,” said McMillan.
According to McMillan, other short-term plans include the launching of the all-new Comcast Sports Southeast network, which will showcase many college athletic events not currently seen on television. Additionally, McMillan revealed that the History Channel will be added to the extended cable lineup at no extra charge.
“In the past, the History Channel was part of a package that was costing cable subscribers more unnecessary money out of their pockets,” said McMillan. “We wanted to fix that right away as a gesture of good faith.”
Long term goals for McMillan are based around the ideas of employee competency and customer satisfaction being the most important factors to continued success.
“One thing that I want to make clear to our customers is that we aren’t promising that we won’t be making mistakes along the way,” said McMillan. “What I can say is that we are moving towards building a platform where we will be able to address and react to customer concerns as well as product development in a timely and responsible manner.”