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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bexar who wrote (914)	12/12/1997 4:56:00 PM
From: Melissa McAuliffe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

Bexar, Thanks for your response re: getting this on a laptop. After I read your message I immediately decided to call and order this. I am going to share my experience. This is not intended to offer a negative on this company or stock because I think it is great and am very excited about both @home and the whole concept in general. But I also know that I am a heavy web user and probably more knowledgeable than your average consumer here, i.e. I know I want this and now that I know I can get it on my laptop I want it tomorrow. I called Comcast. On their recorded selections of options they didn't even mention @home. So I had to hit 0 for "other". My point..@home should be mentioned everytime someone calls Comcast. I then got a person who told me I had to call another number. It was the # for @ home. Point 2-Why not have call forwarding to make this easy. I then called @home and after listening to music, I heard about the new upgrade and how if you didn't install it your screen would be blank or some such thing. Then I got more music and was told the wait was two minutes . Point 3-I didn't care about hearing that my screen would be blank if I didn't upgrade but there may be others who would. Also for the average person why not talk about the service, the benefits, ease of install, etc. Then I spoke to the @home representative. She was superb. Very knowledgeable, helpful. So after asking my questions, I said I wanted to order this immediately. She said the wait was one to two weeks because of the XMAS season..alot of these are being given as gifts. But after I said I needed it as soon as possible she said maybe they could get a better install date. Then after Igave her my address she said..oops, sorry, it's not available yet in your location. I said I know it's available because I know the fiber optic cable was installed this summer. She said that might be completed but the bi-directional upgrade wasn't completed yet. So she said to call Comcast back to see when this would be done. So I called Comcast and they said to call @home. I said no....they said you will know when the bi-directional upgrade will be completed. Then the woman at Comcast put me on hold while she checked. She came back on and said the @home service is available and gave me an account number to provide to @ home when I called them back. So I called @home back ready to order this again and after listening to their recording heard the wait was 10 minutes. As much as I want this I hung up and said I'll just call again another day. BTW, there is a $149 installation charge for this..on special in December for $100. So, what my point in writing this. The market for this is huge and I believe the day will come when people will say remember the old days when we actually had to use a telephone to access the internet. But to make this day come as soon as possible these companies have to make people want this service and make it easy to get. I know this whole concept is in its infancy. Maybe my experience was somewhat unique. I will still order this service(I just won't do it when the wait time is 10 minutes) but I think there may be many who would not unless it's one of those things they just absolutely can't live without. Point 4-@home needs a separate group to handle new subscribers vs. all calls. The key is not to make someone who wants to order your product wait 10 minutes. Once they are a customer, you can get away with this...just look at AOL. You can wait for hours and not get a live person on the phone. Melissa Melissa