Tag: AT&T

  • You Will (AT&T ads from 1993)

    Intrigues the conspiracy theorist in me. Imagine how smart I would be if I could go back and make a commercial that everyone thinks they saw 30 years ago predicting everything we are currently doing.

    Good idea?

    HT to Gavin

  • Customer Service Matters

    When it comes to customer service, it matters. It is one of those things that I have always been quick to notice… and lately I’ve come across some amazing examples of it.

    In the past 30 days I’ve received remarkable, incredible, stellar…. unbelievable service from several companies I have new relationships with. Stunning!

    Observation: Start-ups have better customer service because they have to. They see the connection between a happy customer and their bottom line. They know that a happy customer will tell their friends about a fantastic experience. Conversely, they know that a bad customer experience will spread like wildfire. Incredible customer service is a cheap marketing strategy!

    But start-ups aren’t the only ones with great customer service. That’s what makes AT&T and Apple such a crazy combination for the iPhone! AT&T has has had horrible customer service for decades and they are so big they don’t care one ounce. They know for every 10 customers they lose to bad customer service there are 10 more who will create a new account. And Apple has created a culture of stellar customer service to the point where people will spend an extra 1000 for a laptop just because they know if they ever have a problem they can take it back to the store.

    Southwest Airlines is another long-standing company with stellar customer service. I’ve purchased tickets with them before, not read the rules, and had to call to ask a refund… even though I didn’t deserve one. Not only have they given it to me, they’ve always done it happily even though it was my mistake!

    Why does stellar customer service matter? In today’s marketplace a purchase is all about the experience. If you go the extra mile your customers will love you forever. They will wear your t-shirts and brag to their friends that they are your client.

    Customer experience is the next great wave of marketing.

  • Powered by the Letter “I”

    Two things dominated our Saturday. Ikea and iPhones.

    Actually, on the way to this epic fun we had lunch at In & Out Burger. I’m not a cult-fan of the burger joint but it was quick, easy, and not McDonald’s.

    ikeaIkea: There’s a pretty strong irony in our trip yesterday. When we moved across country in August we sold nearly all of our furniture. We had a rule of thumb that if it had been to California and back in 2002 & 2003 it wasn’t going in 2008. Then when we set up the house in August we made a massive trip to Ikea. We packed 4 of those big flatbeds to the gills and crawled our way to the checkout. They even had to break our receipt in half so that their strict delivery rules when get it all delivered.

    When we moved into the bigger place a few weeks ago we immediately recognized that the bedrooms all needed more stuff. Both kids bedrooms are huge and all they had was a dresser and a loft bed. So back to Ikea we went! We didn’t manage to get everything they needed yesterday. But we did add to each kids room a lamp, desk, and chair. Mom and dad also picked up some end tables, a TV stand for our bedroom, and a patio table for the backyard. It doesn’t look like Ikea has everything we need… so we’ll have to look at our second favorite furniture store, Target.

    apple-logoiPhones: Kristen and I have bounced back and forth on this forever. We didn’t upgrade when 3G released because one of our phones was still under contract. Then I really wrestled with the whole Blackberry vs. iPhone thing, then I decided in December I wanted an iPhone but I didn’t want to make a decision before I saw if Apple was going to release a new version. When Apple released a new Mac Mini, iMac, and Shuffle last week that was my signal that they weren’t rushing anything to production.

    With that, we headed to Fashion Valley Mall‘s Apple store to make our purchase. Though the store was slammed we were able to find a person who was perfectly happy to help us out. While the in-store activation thing is a bit annoying I can imagine this is the way to go on the macro level for Apple/AT&T. I wrapped things up in the Apple store while Kristen shopped at Crate & Barrel for a new blender. (Thank you community group for the gift card!) I’ll do a full review later for the iPhone 3G, but I will say my initial expectations were exceeded. Before I got to the car I had already synched my phone with my gmail account and installed a Facebook and Twitter app. The hardest part about the set-up was getting my contacts synched between gmail and Address Book on my Macbook. But now I have all of that taken care of and all of my contacts sorted into tidy groups. Next up is getting Kristen’s contacts and my contacts to synch… wouldn’t that be cool? If only it talked to our Highrise account…

    We spent most of the evening putting things together from Ikea. Twist, twist, twist, screw gun, screw gun, screw gun. All fairly simply and everyone is happier. We still have a long way to go until everything is put away from this last move but it is progressing nicely and we’ll be hosting a housewarming BBQ some time after Easter.

  • Blackberry or iPhone?

    I am tired of my phone. I’ve rocked my HTC 8525 for almost 2 years and it’s pretty much outlived it’s usefulness for me. The lack of battery life and the size of it really don’t help. It does some funny things… like I have alarms set on it that won’t stop. And it has calendar items from my time in Romeo that I can’t seem to delete. And since I’ve dropped it a couple of times, it sometimes flakes out completely. It’s been a workhorse and I’m ready to put it out to pasture.

    This has caused me to do some shopping. And I’m really at a loss of what to get. I like the idea of the Google phone, but I make it a habit to never by the first generation of anything tech. And smartphones are clearly out. So that leaves me with two choices, Blackberry or iPhone?

    Of course this is all tied to a bigger question. Do we finally drop our 10 year relationship AT&T? I’ve been abundantly honest about the fact that their customer service is horrid. And when you couple that with their unique ability to jack my bill up higher and higher all the time, it may be time to move to another provider… thus making Blackberry my only real choice.

    But here’s what I am thinking. I know I’m a power user. I also know that I’d love to have everything in my life be on a single platform. I wonder if there is any way they’d let me test drive both before making a decision? 2 years is a long time to hate a phone.

    The big thing going for the iPhone in my book is that it’s an interface I’m used to and like, I already know how much AT&T sucks, it’s a fun toy, I could sell my new nano, and I know that if I jacked it up Apple would fix it. The big thing going for the Blackberry is that it’s a proven performer. It’s a workhorse like my current phone. What it lacks in sex appeal it gains in functionality.

    Eh, I’ll probably sit on this one through the holidays. If I had to chose today I’d go with the Blackberry. I think the iPhone is cool. But at the end of the day, the iPhone doesn’t seem to be for power users.

  • $200 Asterisk for the iPhone 3G


    iphone 3g $199    If you are like me you didn’t notice the tiny asterisk in this image. But there is one. Do you see it?

    This morning I intended on lining up at the Partridge Creek Apple Store to upgrade both of my AT&T phones to the smoking hot iPhone 3G. 

    Since I’ve been a loyal AT&T customer since 1998 I knew I needed to call their customer service and make sure there weren’t any surprises. And boy am I glad I did.

    Not pictured here with Steve is the asterisk. You have to be a new customer or have an expired contract with AT&T to get this price. In the dozens of articles and videos I’d watched about the new iPhone I somehow missed this little detail. Stupid Adam, fooled again.

    So, people like me who have been loyal to their wireless company are getting hosed. No love for us on the iPhone. The loyal customer price is $399. Even on the Apple site I can’t find $399 mentioned as the price, but that’s how AT&T has always treated loyal customers… horribly. 

    So, I talked to customer service. If you are like me and are looking to get an iPhone 3G for the advertised $199 instead of the loyal customer price of $399, here are a few tricks the customer service agent told me to try. 

    #1 Cancel your existing account. Yes, she told me that! After 10 years as a customer, I was told the best service I could get with AT&T was to cancel my account. 

    #2 Add lines, suspend lines. To get the $199 I could add 2 lines to my family plan for $10 per month and suspend my current 2 lines for free. Eh? She even told me I should just give away my other 2 lines “to anyone.” 

    #3 Keep calling AT&T until you get someone to agree to give you the upgrade price before your current contract expires. (Mine is in September)

    #4 Open a new account under a new name. If you are like me and have a family plan, just close your account under one name and start a new account under the other. 

    Of course I am not going to do any of these. Next month we are moving across the country and I know from experience with AT&T that they’ll offer me a new two year contract than. This may also be our time to try a new company, like Verizon. 

    AT&T has always had the worst customer service in the mobile phone industry. I’ve long held that AT&T is a great company as long as you never call the 800 number and that is re-confirmed every time I talk to “customer care.” 

    Here I am, a customer of 10 years that would like to re-up his contract for 2 more years at a rate nearly double what he currently pays and I’m told I can do one of 4 “tricks?” 

  • Geek Tool: Turn your smartphone into a mobile wireless router

    Windows Mobile 6I have an ultra-swanky Smartphone. You know, one of those devices you see people carry around and you think… I’d like to be surfing the internet too!

    It takes 2 megapixel pictures, connects nicely to my Outlook, and a whole bunch of other nice features.

    But there was one thing it didn’t do that I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to be able to  be able to use my cell phone’s mobile internet connection to hook up my laptop. You know, you’re out on a boat in the middle of the lake and you just can’t browse the internet or post to YouTube or even blog quite like you’d want to. More importantly, I’ve been traveling and needed to do important things on my laptop and not had access to wireless. (Or not wanted to pay $10 for crappy wifi at an airport or conference center.)

    Well, now I can. I just installed a tiny program on my phone which allows me to convert my phone into a mobile wireless router.  This means that for the extra $20/month that I pay AT&T for my mobile internet connection I can now use my laptop too. Sure, it won’t be blazing Wireless N or even Wireless G. But it is basically Wireless B.

    This could even be a fix for folks who live rural and can’t get anything faster than broadband where they live. (Well, satellite… but that’s about the same speed as this for 1/2 the cost.)

    If you have a Windows Mobile 6 equipped Smartphone. Go here and try it for yourself. It’s a free program too.

    So next time you’re somewhere with me and you want to use your laptop to do stuff, just tell me to turn on my mobile router.

    HT to Make Magazine