How To Drive Your Customers Away, The AT&T Wireless Way

Having myself been stung by the AT&T Wireless process and service nightware, I read with great interest the story of their downfall and presumed sale next month. The toll: a significant number of the company’s 31,000+ employees will likely lose their jobs, and the remaining customers will have to migrate. One take on the root cause:

“Years of substandard customer care, spotty coverage and dropped calls had taken their toll.

‘The line from the company was that we lost those people out of bad luck,’ said a regional sales manager. ‘But they walked away flipping us the bird. They aggressively walked away from us. They couldn’t wait to get away from us.'”

Ok, it’s not rocket science, folks. Do these things:

• Listen to your customers
• Make sound business decisions based on that input
• Do what you promise, when you promise to do it
• When your customers are defecting in droves, don’t spend millions of dollars upgrading the “company’s Falcon 50 jet to a bigger Gulfstream jet for commuting — then put millions of dollars more into a new interior for it.”

(shakes head…)