Legal Commentary

AT&T Joins Customer Service Hall of Shame

By Patrick J. Lamb

I have been an AT&T wireless phone forever.  Remember when cell phones were the size of Rhode Island?  I was a wireless customer then.  And since.  But change is a good thing, especially when a customer's loyalty doesn't count for anything.

In February 2008, I bought an iPhone.  To get the best price, I had to extend my contract for two years.  By the way, the sales person promised that if I didn't like the iPhone, I could get the preferred price on a new phone.  A couple of months later, I decided I didn't like the iPhone.  I went back and found out that the clerk's promise was "not policy."  So I paid full price for a Blackberry Bold.

In the past few weeks, my BB Bold has been acting up.  So I went back to my local AT&T store.  The clerk told me about an acknowledged censor problem with the hardware that caused the symptoms I was experiencing.  Some might have asked to have the defective BB replaced at no cost.  Not me.  I was prepared to pay the lower price one pays when you renew your contract.  Was that good enough?  Nope.  Because my contract extension from my failed iPhone didn't expire until February, I would have to be the "in between" price.  The fact that I was a forever AT&T customer didn't count for jack.

So tomorrow, I will take my phone, my wife's phone and my kids' phones (we are power users) and I will go to visit a Verizon store and see what can be worked out.  I will spend whatever time is needed to send my lonely little message to AT&T.  I will "pay any price, bear any burden" to make these folks understand that customer loyalty should count for something.  And then I will never do business with them again.

Congratulations AT&T.  Your stupidity cost you one customer (the price difference in the hardware amounted to one month's bill).  I can only hope someone else sees this post (or the Tweets I've noted) and decides to join me.

Full post as published by In Search of Perfect Client Service on October 15, 2010 (boomark / email).