This post has been updated.
You really can buy almost anything on Amazon—even your cable and internet service.
Comcast NBCUniversal has began selling bundles of its services through the online retailer, Comcast announced on Monday (Mar. 21). The deal between the cable giant and the e-commerce behemoth aims to make it easier to shop for its US cable, internet, and phone packages online, at a time when custom, “skinny” bundles and direct-to-consumer streaming platforms are muddling the buying experience.
Through the new “Amazon Cable Store,” shoppers can mix and match one- and two-year subscriptions of select Comcast cable, TV, and phone offerings, or buy them individually, for the same prices they’d find on Comcast’s website. And they can do so with fewer clicks. They can also complete credit checks and schedule installations through Amazon.
And customers who shop through the platform get access to a dedicated customer-service team, that endeavors to answer calls in a minute or less. That could be a game-changer for Comcast, which is known for apocalyptically awful customer service.
Comcast hired 90 new universal technicians to help Amazon customers with any and all problems related to their Comcast subscriptions. Each service representative is trained to assist with everything from billing to sales to technical issues, so customers don’t have to be transferred from department to department. Currently, only select Comcast customer-service teams do this, like the accessibility support team, which assists disabled customers.
Amazon takes a cut each time a customer signs up for a Comcast package through its site, the Wall Street Journal reports (paywall), similar to the referral fees it gets from other third parties that sell products on its site. The e-commerce site may start pushing offers for Comcast services to shoppers who buy TV sets or other related items, the publication said. Brick-and-mortar retailers such as Best Buy also sell packages of services through arrangements with the cable providers.
While Amazon’s cable store was first spotted on Sunday (Mar.20), it didn’t appear to be available in all Comcast markets at first. TV Predictions reported that Amazon said Comcast subscriptions were not available in some areas where Comcast currently operates. A spokesperson for Comcast later told Quartz that the store is now available across the company’s entire footprint.
Moving forward, Comcast may begin selling other services, like its home-security system, through Amazon. And it plans to apply some of the learnings from Amazon’s cable store to its own e-commerce experience.
Updated Mar. 22 at 11:15am EST: This post was updated with details provided by Comcast after publication.