A Window on WESTMOUNT Ville-Marie
... writings for a better World

From: (Chris Goodfellow)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 04:00:02 GMT
Organization: LaurentianWeb http://www.laurentian.com
To: dtnicholson@videotron.ca

For publication if you like....
LaurentianKita of the week.

"Tolling of the Bell for Bell" - or how to drive yourself out of
business.


In this the most featherbedded and regulated nation, it was with
great satisfaction when at 7 o'clock this Monday morning, November 24,
1997 I ended a 33 year old business relationship with a tired old hag
named Ma Bell. It used to be Ma Bell was sacred...sort of like your
mother. Well no more. It's open season and I expect it will get worse.

This all came about because our central switching office in Arundel
Quebec was converted from an analog to digital switch effective
September 27th thus enabling us to take advantage of competitive long
distance carriers. Needless to say this new central office switch was
about 15 years late and was not accompanied by any new private telephone
line capacity in our municipality (another separate application was to
be made to the CRTC for another rate hike to cover that next year).

Ma Bell was touting the new switch to all of us as early as last July
with glossy brochures and promotions for all those "new" services like
call display and call answer. On the other hand, they certainly weren't
telling us that competitive carrier access would also be available!

To make a long story short I picked up the Gazette this morning with a
promotional pamphlet from ATT and I decided to give them a call and see
if their service was available in Arundel now. I dialed the 800 number
on the english pamphlet and an english voicemail answered with two
simple choices - one for existing customers and two for new customers. I
was connected to an agent immediately. A cheery english voice greeted
me. It took me all of five seconds to perceive here was a company and a
salesperson who truly wanted my business!  It wasn't the same tired
and often fractious voice at the end of Bell's line who used to
call me year after year trying to confuse me with an interminable choice
of Max, Real Max, Real Plus, Tired Max, US Max  or Max the profit
Maximizer but a simple and clear alternative was offerred to me by this
very well spoken voice at the other end of the line. The young woman on
the phone said simply "Mr. Goodfellow I want to earn your business and I
will take all the time necessary to explain how your bill will be lower
with AT&T". Yes she did take all the time in the world to work through
my last 2 bills with me and we determined that if I switched I would
have paid 23% less on one and 25% less on another...in other words very
real dollars...and if I paid by credit card I'd get an extra 5% discount
on top!...Aeroplan miles as well on top of all that!

I spend several thousand dollars on long distance every year and I've
had to endure the rudeness of the Bell billing department on several
occasions as if I was priveleged to deal with them. I've complained
every spring when our two lines get shorted by melting snow. These lines
were installed over 50 years ago and give my modems shivers and
shakes and cause my fax to freak out now and then. For all of which,
I've had the pleasure and privelege of paying a kilometer distance
surcharge from the central office on top of the normal line charge. My
monthly service is $30.38 for each lousy line and I've been paying here
for 15 years!

Well true to my Canadian nature of self flagellation I decided to call
the tired old hag once more  and see if she wanted to pitch for my
business before I switched. Well, Mr. Bell CEO maybe you should try and
dial up your own business office once in a while from your lofty tower
there on Beaver Hall. The old adage that the early bird gets the worm
couldn't be more true...your office doesn't open 'till 8:30.  Your voice
mail kills you before your people do. Its a five step process to get the
agent and if you select english, believe it or not, you then get a
bilingual message choice again in the sequence! When I got through to
the agent I explained that I'm attempting to make a comparison between
carriers and she immediately starts off with that Real Plus Plan and
Real Max plan stuff all over again and when I say simply can you give me
a flat rate she says what's that? (am I on the moon or is she?)  ...and
then she starts the same old drivel about 35% off 6-11 and 60% off 12-8
and 20% off on top of that but if you take the daytime plan you can now
have 30% off as of last month but that only applied to the daytime plan
and you don't get it on the evening and night plan in
which case you should take the 25% off plan....ENOUGH...and then to
obviously impress upon me the fact I was a complete cretin unworthy
of any independent judgment and completely incapable of any
mathmatical gymnastics, she commenced to tell me how unreliable Sprint
and AT&T were and Bell's service was so much superior...I simply said
you've lost me and thank you very much...goodbye. Sales 101 - you NEVER
knock the competition that way!


AT&T now has my business. When I called back I was again greeted by
another eager and friendly voice that wanted my business. It took all of
3 minutes to enter the information and they tell me in three to five
days they will be my carrier. In my two conversations with both AT&T
representatives - very much to their credit - they did not knock Bell
but simply impressed me with their efficient handling of my questions
about billing details.


I've done a quick and rough calculation of my bills and I expect to save
at least $1,000 by this switch. You've had it good for so long Ma Bell
that you have truly forgotten what your basic mission is. I'M THE
CUSTOMER STUPID! You have treated me with appalling arrogance
for so long it was just a matter of time that when I was given a choice
I would explore it. I grew up being proud of Ma Bell and having
great phone service in Canada but the last 15 years have been all
downhill for you.

What's the lesson here for you if you want to win back our business?
Yeah I'd rather do business with a Canadian based company. But did you
bother to figure out you publish two 800 numbers
-one for the english advertising and one for the french advertising - so
that when your customer makes contact he gets a friendly voice in the
language of his choice and doesn't have to step through 5 voice mails
or did it take an American to figure that out?

Instead of embracing competition as an opportunity for your organization
to excel, your whole organization went on the defensive and ran to the
CRTC for protection on every front. Instead of being straightforward,
obfuscation became the rule of the day and footdragging its first
cousin.  Instead of investing in more local lines for rural towns, you
stopped dead in your tracks. People here have been waiting 5 years for
private lines. De-regulation was an opportunity to re-vitalize your
organization and you have viewed it as nothing but trouble. Instead of
clarifying and simplifying you have attempted to confuse at every turn
in your customer relationships. I've paid monthly bills for myself and
my businesses since 1964, month in and month out, and on time,  and you
have treated me with a very special arrogance that I have experienced in
no other business relationship (save perhaps your first cousins in
Canadian oligopoly - the banks).

Well perhaps I'm just chump change as a customer. I suspect not though.
I expect there are thousands like me if what my friends are doing is
any indication. ...and I expect like any arrogant supplier you are now
going to get your dose of humility. Your product is no better or no
worse than the next guy and the technology makes it easy to switch and
switch we will. What it is all about Mr. Bell CEO is service and
pricing and you are not winning on either. You had a fair crack at
responding before I switched. If you want me back it will take more than
glossy brochures and obfuscation. You're in the big leagues now with
guys who understand and play a much more sophisticated game in their
customer relationships.


Take a little lesson from a friend of mine who I went
to McGill with and who owns several apartment buildings in Montreal.
He summed it up best to me recently. I asked him how he kept all his
buildings full and stayed out of conflicts with tenants and the rental
board unlike many landlords. He said to me "It is all about attitude.
They are not tenants, they are MY CUSTOMERS. As long as they are my
customers, I will do everything possible to please them."


Well Ma Bell, I'm no longer your tenant and I'm someone else's
customer...and it feels good to be romanced by a younger woman.
Competition is good. Get to work!

Nov 29th
Yeah yeah...I dial 1-700-555-4141 every hour in anticipation of hearing
"Your long distance supplier is AT&T" instead of "Votre fournisseur
d'interurbain est Bell Quebec"... it should be done by tomorrow! I have
paid 38 cents a minute net for years to call Montreal, and it will
be 14 cents ... there is justice in competition! REAL DEFLATION!!!



From: whitehallk@citenet.net (MML)
Subject: AT&T

Dear D&D,

Thank you for he email.  Coincidently I too switched to AT&T last night.  I
called on a whim and was instantly won over by the pleasure of the
experiance. There is no question that intelligent, curteous service is  the
most powerful marketing tool of the 90's, and the bemoths that fail to
grasp this fact will not survive. Civility fuels profits.

MML