Tag Archives: AT&T

May 28, 2014 · 8:59 am

Reach Out And Touch Someone

In the late 1970’s the folks at the Bell System, which was part (a BIG part) of AT&T, ran commercials with the theme “Reach Out And Touch Someone.”  It urged consumers to be proactive – to pick up the telephone and “just say hi.”  After last week I sort of wish they had followed their own advice and let me explain why.

AT&T Store

 (Photo credit: JeepersMedia)

My family and I have been on AT&T Wireless for decades.  So long that two of our four accounts have unlimited data plans grandfathered in (try to buy one of those any more – you can’t!).  We found, however, that sometimes one or two of us would go over the monthly data cap and have to pay additional charges while the two on the unlimited accounts rarely used much data at all (we’re often connected to WiFi).  Our monthly bill was close to $300 and we’ve been thinking about finding a cheaper, better plan for us all.

The good news is that our bill is now $100 a month less and we’re still with AT&T.  They have a shared data plan that will work for us all and even though two of us lost our unlimited data it won’t be an issue given our usage history.  The bad news is that AT&T came very close to losing us as customers.  Why?

Because we had to figure this out for ourselves.  Do I think it’s reasonable for a huge company to look at its customers and figure out that someone could be paying them $1,200 a year less?  Actually, I do.  That’s what the digital and data revolution of the last decade has been about to a large extent.  Using what you know about your customers to anticipate their needs and provide better service.  I will say that once we went to the AT&T store to confirm what we were able to discern on our own about adjusting our plan they could not have been more helpful and we left quite happy.

No one can take customers for granted.  While AT&T knows an awful lot more about how my family uses data and wireless services than most businesses know about their customers, it’s incumbent on all of us to take whatever it is we do know and try to put it to use in a proactive manner.  That’s what I urge my clients to do.  And now I’m urging you as well.  You in?

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March 21, 2013 · 9:48 am

The Bluetooth Runaround

Today we have yet another tale of consumer woe and multiple corporate failures.  This one is a doozy, since it affects a couple of popular products and is generating a lot of chatter on the interwebs.  In fact, one popular site has over a hundred comments on this topic and that’s just a subset of the problem.

Android invasion, Sydney, Australia

(Photo credit: Pranav Bhatt)

As our featured players we have a very popular phone, a couple of very popular families of cars, every cell phone carrier (notice I didn’t use the term “popular” with them) and a LOT of consumers.  Let me explain.

A coupe of months ago I upgraded my phone to the Galaxy SG3.  I love the phone – great display, very fast – no complaints at all.  It came with the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android and I use AT&T as my carrier.  When I got the phone I linked it to my car – a Nissan Altima Hybrid – using Bluetooth and was happily using the car’s built-in hand’s free system to chat and drive safely.

A month ago I became even happier when AT&T pushed an upgrade to Android, installing the Jelly Bean version.  The phone seemed even faster, I got Google Now, and  I was happy to be running a more current version.  Until I received a phone call in the car.  It sounded like an alien calling and I had to pull over to pick up the phone and talk.  I rebooted the phone, it connected to the car, but the sound was bad.  Unusable, actually.  I tried pairing it again to the car, hard resets of the phone and a few other tricks but the audio is completely garbled.

A search on the topic showed me that we have a multiple part blame game going on.  It is an issue affecting not just Nissans but VW/Audi, Inifinitis and a few other models.  Just this phone, every carrier, and only when the phone is upgraded to Jelly Bean.  The carriers say it’s Samsung’s fault.  Samsung says the auto guys need to upgrade the Bluetooth software in their cars.  They all blame Android for not making the Bluetooth version in Jelly Bean backward compatible.

Here is what none of them are doing:  taking responsibility for fixing it.  What they’re not seeing is that it’s costing them money as well as massive amounts of goodwill.  At a minimum  it’s hundreds of calls to customer service, each of which costs money   In the case of the carriers, many people are demanding new phones (which have the older version of Android) to replace the upgraded one.  That’s expensive.  Does any business have too many customers?  There are a lot of cars/phones/carriers from which one can choose, and while very few people are going to make an immediate change to their car or carrier, people don’t forget how they were supported when the time for that evaluation comes.

I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with this.  Maybe I’ll just try to use the phone’s speaker if I get a call while driving.  Maybe I’ll go get a new S3 and not upgrade it until I see this is fixed or they push another version of Android (the rumors are 4.2.2. fixes it).  I’m really interested to see if any party to this mess steps up and does something other than point fingers.  Why am I not surprised?  Isn’t that sad?

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January 7, 2013 · 11:15 am

Take My Money…PLEASE!

Another week, another horror tale from the world of stupid online corporate tricks.

att-003

(Photo credit: wuji9981)

Today we bring you the sad and somewhat horrifying story of the phone company that won’t take your money.  Trust me – I wish I could report that it was out of some philanthropic urge it had to give us all a break.  Not so.  Instead, it’s (yet another) example of how letting programmers, lawyers, and designers do things without input from the real world can spell disaster.

Here at Ritter Media World Headquarters we have a land line as our primary business phone.  It’s from AT&T (yep, them again) and on the bill is also my internet service.  Generally I send them an electronic check once a month but that takes a couple of days to get to them from the bank (a great topic for another post – why the hell should they hold the money for two business days?).  As sometimes happens, the bill got buried in a pile of paper and rather than be late I thought I’d go right to the ATT website and pay the bill directly via credit card.

That was what I thought I’d do.  Unfortunately, after spending 20 minutes on the website, I still couldn’t figure out how to link primary account (it’s the only landline account) to my email and I couldn’t pay the bill.  I tried linking it my ATT Wireless accounts – neither of those worked.  I tried the ATT email they assigned me (but never use) – that didn’t work.  I finally gave up and called them – no time on hold, one layer of menus, type in the credit card, done.

Obviously ATT is a lot more experienced with phones than they are with websites.  Paying via the telephone was a snap.  If someone like me – who is on the web almost 12 hours a day and breathes digital – can’t figure out how to use the web service portal, imagine how someone who can barely send a text will feel.  There are a couple of points here.  First, I wonder how many “civilians” ATT put on the site to test navigation and usability?  Did they give them 3 or 4 tasks – like pay your bill! – and observe them?  Second, stories such as this are why there is still a long way to go with a large segment of the population with respect to making them accept technology into their lives.

Have a horror story to share?  We’re listening!

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