I have a monumental story of FAIL to share this evening. I have to give up my svelt x61t, with it’s integrated WWAN, for reasons to be explained in another post. I know I’ll be hit with a termination fee, as the service was setup under my own account. For whatever reason, the $50/month for work-related use wasn’t reimburseable. I also have a few personal lines with AT&T, so I figured they’d do something to make me happy.
Quite the opposite. According to the reps on the other end, there was nothing that they could do. I did get a few “helpful” suggestions:
1. Can you use the service in another computer. “No, it’s integrated,” a fact that no matter how many times I tried to explain, they didn’t quite understand. I routinely explain technology to lawyers, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me.
2. Interested in transfering it to someone else at your workplace? lol, sure. I’ll troll the hallway and will ask if anyone wants a WWAN account.
The end result: I cancelled the service and plan on yanking my other lines ASAP. The rep had to get “approval” to terminate service immediately; otherwise, it would have run through the end of the month. Furthermore, I’ve let other people know my disgust, further adding to AT&T’s poor image. Oh, and let’s not forget any future business relationship with AT&T is shot. Clearly this was a massive FAIL for AT&T. Lets offer some suggestions so they might be able to figure out this customer relationship thingy:
1. Get CSRs that actually understand hardware can be integrated. It’s not hard to understand, really.
2. Appreciate the situation around a cancellation; I loved my WWAN and hoped to keep it indefinitely.
The inflexibility of another monolithic corporation cost it a relationship. Inconsequential? Individually, yes, but in the context of both social-Web dynamics and future business, hardly.
