Customer Service In A Brave New World: AT&T Puts A Finger In The Dam

Michael Arrington

J. Michael Arrington (born March 13, 1970 in Huntington Beach, California) is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of TechCrunch, a blog covering startups and technology news. Arrington attended Claremont McKenna College (BA Economics, 1992) and Stanford Law School (JD, 1995) and practiced as a corporate and securities lawyer at two law firms: O’Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich... → Learn More

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

I don’t know why but I just can’t stop re-reading this exchange. Poor AT&T shoots itself in the head today by emailing customers and asking them to provide feedback in one centralized place. Customers promptly complied, and the tower of hate is almost overwhelming. Someone at AT&T will likely be cleaning out their desk tomorrow over this, and frankly I can’t believe they didn’t see it coming. It’ll be hard for AT&T to argue that the vast majority of its customers are happy when nearly all the comments are hugely negative, some violently so.

Some commenters were particularly incensed that they had to “like” the page before commenting.

I do pity the poor sobs who are being tasked with actually responding to all of these comments. They’re writing so fast that they can’t keep their grammar straight. And they’re trying, heroically, to defend the company against this self inflicted wound. Mostly they’re asking for specific feedback instead of vague but strong vitriol. And in this case they succeeded. Michael Tejada went from calling them the devil to simply requesting a no cap data plan. And even thanks them at the end.

Sometimes all people need is to know they’re being heard. Of course, the guy who said he has never successfully completed a call on his iPhone from his office may need a little more than platitudes.

Company: AT&T
Website: att.com
IPO: NYSE:T

AT&T Inc. (AT&T) is a holding company. AT&T is a provider of telecommunications services in the United States and worldwide. Services offered include wireless communications, local exchange services and long-distance services. AT&T operates in four segments: Wireless, Wireline, Advertising Solutions and Other. Its Wireless subsidiaries provide both wireless voice and data communications services across the United States, and through roaming agreements, in a substantial number of foreign countries. Wireline subsidiaries provide primarily landline voice and data communication services, AT&T...

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