Comcast is launching a new feature for its mobile application that facilitates tech support visits to a customer’s home and lets them know exactly when a technician will arrive.

The new feature is part of the XFINITY My Account app and gives customers a 30-minutes window of when to expect a customer support technician. The feature is likely meant to combat the oft-maligned nature of technician visits, which are commonly criticized for being inconsistent.

“We know that our customers’ time is valuable,” said Hank Fore, regional senior vice president of Comcast’s California Region. “We want to help them better plan their day when they have an appointment scheduled.

Cable companies get a bad rap in the customer service department, and that reputation is often well earned.

There are many horror stories floating around on the Internet of customer service calls that last for hours, technicians that do not show up for days and many more tales that will frighten even the bravest consumer from trying to brave the world of cable customer service.

Comcast is aiming to combat this perception along with some of the problems that cause it with the introduction of some new features to its customer mobile app that will help facilitate house calls from technicians.

The new feature is called Tech ETA. It gives consumers a more concrete window of when their technician will arrive, narrowing it down to 30 minutes rather than the groan-inducing multiple hour windows that cable companies often give.

Comcast is also testing out a feature that will notify app users when their technician is actually on the way.

This is intended to take the guesswork out of a cable house call, freeing customers from being trapped in their homes for hours waiting for the cable technician who might never come.

Right now, the feature is being tested in California, and will be rolled out in the rest of the country in the future.

In the annals of complaints against cable companies, which are deep and full of much moaning and gnashing of teeth, serially late cable technicians ranks as one of the top affronts to customer satisfaction.

As more and more customers start to “cut the cord” and turn to digital streaming services for their media consumption needs over cable companies, those ISPs need to do everything they can to change that perception before they lost too many customers.

That is the logic behind this new feature, and it is one that Comcast is not alone in employing.

Most recently, Verizon began a similar effort to leverage its mobile app to facilitate customer service and remove some of the frustration that plagues it (see story).

Additionally, an executive from AT&T recently spoke about the ways that big data has enable cable companies to improve those customer-facing services and combat this longstanding bad rap (see story).

Comcast is only the latest in a long line of companies to use mobile to streamline or fix something that many had resigned to being a lost cause.

We’re giving our customers more convenient mobile and digital ways to interact with us – we want to fit into their lives and not the other way around,” Mr. Fore said.