Why Customer Service Matters

Update:

After talking with a few more folks at AT&T, I understand why I could not do what I wanted to do. There are some great people in the organization who are trying to make it work and I appreciate that. Hopefully everything will get resolved and we will go on with our iPhone enhanced days! I just wish the people helping me could help their call center phone support reps realize that everyone is important. The following post was written out of frustration, without all of the facts. However it still holds merit as to treating your customers right, no matter the business or company. What goes up, well, it usually comes down and how you treat the everyday customer will have long-term effects on your business.

Warning: This post contains language not meant for small children or something like that!

Disclaimer: I love my iPhone, coolest invention ever!

Ok, got that crap out of the way. This post is a customer service post. Last time I checked, customer service provokes a real good value into Word of Mouth Marketing. When your customer service is bad, so is your buzz in the streets.

I had a battle with AT&T today over my wife's phone. No matter the battle, and who is right and wrong, the customer is always right, right? Well according to the highest person in their good old call center, the customer is not right, AT&T is not Burger King and they don't care what other, friendlier, services and carriers do. They have the iPhone and everyone wants one. They want them so bad that the local Sanford store is saying up to 21 days on pre-orders.

Basically my call with said supervisor ended in them saying,

yea go ahead and cancel your subscription, we have a 3 week backlog of people begging to get onto our network.

Ouch!

I posted my initial thoughts on Twitter. I was mad. Then I thought, is anyone else mad. In comes Twitter Search:


And there are pages and pages of others.

Why it matters?
If AT&T is looking to be in this for the long haul they are going to have to look past Steve Jobs and the iPhone. There is a bigger picture. Long term contracts are worth a hell of a lot more than a $199 phone that Apple eats anyway.

I am sure that with their Customer Support team being so efficient they have plenty of time to track Twitter Search and blog bashing. This is sarcasm, but really I bet they don't even care. People are lining up to sign-up to their service, so even though I thought I was in the right today, AT&T lost me as an advocate, all because they couldn't port over a number that we had active for over 10 years now.

When brands don't care
They rise fast and fall faster
They forget about the little man, who is the one who usually forks over the bill.
Short sighted - need money now mentality
Loss of advocates
Gives competition a chance when there should not have been
Short-sighted to product and service improvements
Dell syndrome (at least they finally got it right)

Oh hell, no one cares.
The iPhone is a hit, I love it, my wife will love it (even with a new number) and the millions who are waiting and got nothing in return will love it too. That is why AT&T doesn't care. They don't have to.

-Greg Rollett