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Bob Garfield recently started a blog, the name of which reveals the intense frustration and dissatisfaction of one customer’s experience: Comcast Must Die. His mission statement bears that kind of clarity one reaches when one is at the end of one’s rope:

What I do have is the earnest desire for such companies to change their ways. This site offers an opportunity — for you to vent your grievances (civilly, please) and for Comcast to pay close attention.

….Congratulations. You are no longer just an angry, mistreated customer. Nor, I hope, are you just part of an e-mob. But you are a revolutionary, wresting control from the oligarchs, and claiming it for the consumer. Your power is enormous. Use it wisely.

Jeff Jarvis, of Dell Hell coinage fame and who has since been the mediary-guide-sherpa, leading Dell out of the storm and into the light, recently responded to the launch of the Comcast-Must-Die blog by suggesting another step in his Buzz Machine blog: imagine the company you want Comcast to be.

It’s an excellent idea: I might imagine the Washington Energy Services company I would prefer to deal with, based on my latest experience. One with better online tools that tell me what to expect in the installation, has better post-installation and quick start information both online and in the non-existent welcome pack. One that understands I don’t know the first thing about gas furnaces–that’s why I hired them, and that’s why I need them to be attentive once the thing is in my house and actually turned on. One that in the end, when all is said and done, listens to me when I ask for information or corrective action.

I might imagine a slightly improved Apple that includes the simple stuff in its product manuals, vs. studio grade photos of gleaming products against a black background: how to turn the iPod off, how to use the video conf feature. It might figure out once and for all that while I LOVE my Mac, my Mini, my iPhone, and my iPod, I still have a yearning for a native Mail app that interfaces with the native iCal app. And I share that yearning with a LOT of others.

Now, notice I’m not ranting. I’m sharing my vision of what would make these companies ideal for me. Some of this those two companies may never decide to do, but some may help them create a fabulous customer experience and reduce dumb contacts and needless irritation, to boot. Does Apple really need someone calling them to find out how to put their iPod in stasis mode to save battery and avoid having it turn on while it’s in your pocket? A friend of mine who recently bought a Nano complained about the product and said she’d never get another because it gets turned on accidentally in her briefcase….she’s not the only one I’ve heard that from. If you want to guess at how many dumb contacts Apple creates for itself just by leaving these instructions out of their handsome if minimal instruction pamphlet, do a google search on “iPod won’t turn off”–amazing.

Jarvis is suggesting something of importance and relevance to any company out there, namely this simple truth: customers have information that would enable you to be more successful and waste less money. How? By listening to the customer. Most customers, if they care at all about the product or service they’ve purchased from you, have at least one good idea to share with you about how things could be better. Jarvis puts the invite out to start sharing our visions for ideal companies, paving the way to sharing more information with those companies we sometimes have to do business, but would prefer to partner with. Here’s his input on the Ideal Cable Company, if Comcast is willing to listen:

Here’s my shot. Please add yours. Here’s my ideal cable company:

* I want my cable company to treat me with the respect it would give a business and issue me an SLA (service-level agreement) that guarantees me uptime, speed, and response time to problems on the internet, TV, and phones — with penalties if they fail. If a gas station can’t pump gas, I don’t pay them anyway. If a cable company can’t pump bandwidth, then I want my money back — plus. And if it’s mission-critical for me, it needs to be mission-critical for them.

* I want my cable company to guarantee that they will not restrict any content on the pipe I pay for. Let network neutrality start at home.

* I want my cable company to offer wi-fi all over my town and to come to roaming agreements that let me get wi-fi anywhere I travel. I’m willing to pay more for that. But I want it.

* Let me choose what channels I get. (Yes, I know that cable companies make money off of bundling but they need to shout back up the stream and change their relationship with the channels to make this happen or we’ll all revolt against both.)

* Give me the ability to watch the programming I’ve bought whenever and wherever I want, without having to pay extra on-demand fees or program my TiVoesque thing or buy a Slingbox. If I bought it, I want to watch it on my terms, damnit. Kill the schedule. For that matter, kill the channel. Serve me anywhere, not just at home. (And, yes, I know there are copyright challenges but the industry better figure this out or their stuff will be left behind.)

* The wise cable company will seamlessly merge programming from broadcast, cable, and the internet. I shouldn’t care where it comes from if I want to watch it.

* The wise cable company would enable the people formerly known as the audience to become critics, recommending programming to each other as part of their system. If cable companies had a business model built on desire — I want to watch that — rather than on mere monopoly, it would serve them and us so much better.

* And the wise cable company would realize that peer-to-peer would save them money, used well.

* The strategic cable company will start to think two-way and realize that many of its customers are creating, not just consuming. So give us the means to host our stuff.

* I want a means to report bad employees and know that action has been taken to fix the personnel problems that give these companies such a terrible reputation with their customers.

* When they have to come out for a service call, I want a guaranteed time. If something beyond their control happens, then I want to be notified. If they don’t do this, I want to be paid for my time.

What does your ideal cable company look like?

Is your company too busy to listen? Hmmm. Might want to take a page from Dell’s playbook, then.