Ken’s Take: Here are two very different stories re: how companies respond when they let customers down.. AT&T tries to slick over the problem. Cox Cable steps up, takes responsibility, and offer a couple of freebies to ease the pain.
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AT&T
“AT&T customers have been complaining for months about dropped calls, spotty service, delayed text and voice messages and slow download speeds for the iPhone”.
In response, AT&T produced a three-minute YouTube video in which it appears that a spokesperson called “Seth the Blogger Guy” will address concerns from a large number of unhappy customers.
“Look, we see the discussions on the Web,” he says, “on blogs, on Twitter, on Facebook. So we thought it would be a good idea to take what’s being said head-on.”
So far, so good, but Seth quickly loses his focus by:
- Describing the huge demands placed on networks by smartphone usage
- Congratulating AT&T for its role in expanding the smartphone market
- Detailing the extraordinary efforts to facilitate a smooth rollout for the iPhone’s MMS feature (which had yet to be released when the video was made, and about which no customers had complained.)
Nearly two minutes into the presentation, Seth finally gets to the point.
“So what are we doing about it?” he says. “Well, put simply, we’re working around the clock to enhance and expand out network to meet these challenges.”
He concludes by telling viewers what AT&T plans to do and how much it plans to spend, but fails to offer concrete timelines, or much else that would matter to a customer frustrated by terrible service.
More important to consider is what Seth left out: He never says what customers really want to hear … sorry.'”
Source Marketing Profs: Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word, Nov. 5,2009
http://www.marketingprofs.com/short-articles/1412/sorry-seems-to-be-the-hardest-word/?adref=NmiF1B9
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Cox Cable
Background: On Wed, Nov. 4 Cox had a massive system outage in Northern Virginia that lasted most of the nite. As luck would have it, that turned out to be the nite that the Yankees beat the Phillies to win the World Series. Lots of disappointed sportsfans.
Here’s how Cox responded. I think they did a pretty good job …. considering.
An email from Cox NOVA’s General Manager:
We let you down. You expected to turn on your television and sit down to watch the game or your favorite Wednesday night show. That probably didn’t happen and I apologize for that.
Some of our most vital equipment took a significant power hit, and when rebooted, much like a home computer, it did not come back on line properly.
In spite of tremendous effort on the part of our best people, that reboot process took several hours and frankly, probably ruined your night. As your neighbor, I experienced the same in my home.
We are committed to you, our valued customer, and nothing is more important than rebuilding your trust in us by taking action to make things right.
First, we’re going to credit your residential account with a free month of digital gateway service. The credit will be automatically applied to your account, no need for you to do anything. We also hope you will take advantage of a free video On DEMAND movie .
While such an outage has not occurred in the history of Cox NOVA, we take this very seriously and are already working to ensure higher reliability of our video network as we completely review processes and emergency procedures so that you can enjoy your your TV service uninterrupted.
We appreciate having you as a customer. It’s important to us. My thanks for allowing us to serve you,
Janet Barnard
SVP and General Manager
Cox Communications
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The Homa Files 
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