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Man Emails AT&T's CEO, Gets Threatened With C&D Order
An anonymous reader writes "After its recent bait and switch, AT&T went ahead and threatened someone emailing the company CEO about customer service concerns, namely with a query about tethering and eligibility rates. The email author also put up a voicemail recording of the company's response and how he managed to contact the CEO in the first place — through The Consumerist." As Engadget notes (as does the complaining customer's updated page), AT&T did at least offer an apology for the threat of legal action, which the company says was unauthorized.
Or if you live in an area like me, it's Comcast cable, or nothing else. There is no choice.
It always annoys me to no end when I have to call their dismal tech support line, and am greeted with "Thank you for choosing Comcast!"....
You hear the one about the unemployed man about to jail time for complaining to his senator? classic.
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Try reading.
The guy was complaining about iPhone stuff, tethering on his iPhone, etc etc.
Since AT&T is the 'only' provider of service for iWidgets that makes this an apple story too.
And it's actually filed under 4 categories, not just Apple.
Looks like the old slogan is still true: "AT&T. We don't care. We don't have to."
~X~
I guess I just dont get this whole "email the CEO" thing. We keep seeing people getting replies from Steve Jobs (no doubt really from his team) and I have read of people having luck with other big companies.
But there are two parts to this. First - someone is frustrated and has nowhere else to turn. Second - the CEO (or whomever) may actually nt know about the practice.
A couple of years ago I got a lemon of a Whirlpool refrigerator. After three trips out by the service company (A&E -- don't ever buy an appliance whose warranty service is done by A&E), and five times ordering the wrong part, and several failed attempts to escalate within A&E... I got annoyed and started doing some digging.
I learned the email of the CEO Whirlpool. I took the time to write out the saga -- including the three refrigerators full of lost food, several days spent waiting for service folks (who were either late, didn't show, or "oops" had the wrong part. Did I mention they get paid for each trip by Whirlpool regardless of whether they fix anything?)...
The result? The CEO sent their general council head an email saying "take care of this, it shouldn't be happening." The general counsel got the right people involved -- people who didn't realize the scam A&E was running. I got a new refrigerator (two tiers up from the one I bought) and some cash. A&E at the very least got a firm speaking to, but I suspect it went a bit further than that. The CEO sent me a note thanking me for raising the issue.
So yeah... I could have just sat at home and whined about how unfair life is and how Whirlpool really sucks. Or I could do about two hours of research to find the right email address, send a well-written email detailing how their customers were being treated (including links to several blogs and forums indicating that my experience was not unique) by their service contractor, and see results.
I think the problem would go away if they just stopped answering normal customers emails to the CEO and executives, or at least just replied with the customer service contact details.
I guess that depends on how you see the "problem" -- if the problem is a whiny customer customer annoying you his petty complaints, I guess that tactic might work. On the other hand if the problem is that your customers are being treated poorly by the company you're putatively in charge of-- well no, that problem won't go away if you ignore it. It will just get worse.