This is an update to An Open Letter to AT&T
Yesterday I received a call from Heidi who works in the CEO’s office at AT&T. She left a message.
Today, she called back.
I would like to take a moment to point out something. In my email, I did not include my phone number. I give credit to Heidi. She took the time to connect my email address with my AT&T account and found my contact information. One of my original complaints was that the Customer Support group has a hard time doing that.
She works in the mobile phone side of things and was speaking on their behalf. She forwarded my information to the internet side of things so someone from that department could talk to me.
In my opinion, the phone call was a complete waste. If one were to break things down logically, she simply agreed with everything in my letter and stated (paraphrasing) that that was the way it was.
She addressed the neutered state of the AT&T store managers. They cannot make efforts to make a customer happy because they do not have those plans. Customization is not a part of AT&T’s customer satisfaction handbook.
She stated that AT&T employees could not assist customers in finding a repair shop because it would be a liability. She stated that if a customer with a broken phone came to AT&T, and the company provided a list of repair shops, the customer would then expect AT&T to replace the phone if something bad happened.
She stated that the customer would look to AT&T to cover charges if the repair shop guys took the phone and made international calls with it after repairing the phone. She also took the time to say that she would never leave her phone at one of those cell phone repair places.
She did try to be helpful and offered to give me the phone number to Research In Motion if I ever needed to fix my Blackberry.
We then discussed customer loyalty and the rewards that one can gain from being a loyal AT&T customer. She said that rewards come with time and paying your bill on time. Because I have been a loyal customer for over 6 years and I have never had a late payment, I could get $50 off any plan if I sign a two year contract.
Based on my current billing rate and taking into account the price of the phone I want to purchase, that is a 3.2% discount. BUT, I forgot to take into account that AT&T will waive the activation fee for my account.
Let me type that out again so you can read it. They are willing to waive an ACTIVATION fee on an account that was activated 6 years ago if I sign up for a two year contract.
At the moment I am going month to month. Right now, I don’t have to pay the ACTIVATION fee.
Heidi and I then discussed third party vendors such as MyRatePlan.com and Amazon.com. During the past few weeks, I have been doing research because my contract is up and I want to get a new kick ass phone. These websites and many others have deals for new customers that are the same or better than the “Loyal Customer” reward I am being offered by AT&T. She told me that she cannot be responsible for third party vendors. She also stated that the phones are refurbished.
Oddly enough, when I log into att.com and pay my bill, there is a link for “UPGRADES”. When i click on that link it takes me to a long list of phones. They are affordable. Great deals can be had. However, most of the phones on the list are AT&T refurbished phones.
I was impressed that Heidi was patient and took the time out of her day to call me, but again, I feel the call was a waste of time. She merely confirmed that AT&T cares very little about customer loyalty, has impotent store managers, and has very little concern about changing the way they do business.
If you work for another phone company and want to steal an AT&T loyal customer, contact me at mickey@somacow.com, I might be interested.
Tags: amp, blackberry, cell phone repair, ceo, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, customer support group, email address, hard time, heidi, international calls, internet side, mobile phone, phone call, phone number, research in motion, rewards, store managers
What a waste. If you don’t buy the warranty of your phone, no matter what happens to it, AT&T will not replace or fix it. So why the hell would they care about liability when advising you to another repair shop?
Cellphone company’s can’t do math. They’d rather a customer who has a year in a half left on their plan, cancel it for $175, instead of just giving them the customer service they deserve. They are in turn missing out on an additional $3k that the customer would have paid them during the contract.