http://gethuman.com/AT_T/news_79/rss http://gethuman.com/AT_T/news_79/rss http://gethuman.com/images/gethuman-hands50.gif http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23850.html Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:49:20 +0000 http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23840.html Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:51:12 +0000 http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23821.html Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:05:41 +0000 ]]> http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23716.html Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:24:23 +0000 http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23707.html Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:21:02 +0000 http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23704.html Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:18:08 +0000 http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23687.html Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:11:35 +0000 http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23676.html Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:21:31 +0000 http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23653.html Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:00:27 +0000 http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23648.html Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:03:07 +0000 http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23600.html Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:35:20 +0000 http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23586.html Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:44:30 +0000 http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23579.html Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:27:44 +0000 http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23354.html Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:21:45 +0000 http://gethuman.com/AT_T/customer-review_23279.html Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:40:57 +0000 http://gethuman.com/blog/AT_T__What_The_Failed_Deal_Means_To_You_299.html Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:16:49 +0000
The Good: The good news? For those of us who hate monopolies, there won't be one forming in the cellphone industry. By acquiring T-Mobile, AT&T would have been the largest cellphone company in the US. What usually comes along with large companies? Higher prices for products, less innovation in the product lines, and a larger customer base which means longer wait times and poorer customer service. This is a pretty big win for consumers, especially in an ever growing space.

The Bad: AT&T was essentially buying T-Mobile for it's "spectrum" or airwaves which carry both phone calls and data. Already highly criticized for dropped calls on a heavily burdened network, AT&T is going to have to find another way to increase network capacity. But it gets worse for you AT&T users. While AT&T was hung up in the courts trying to get the deal approved, Sprint reached a spectrum deal with Clearwire, and Verizon reached a deal with Comcast, paving the way for those two companies to continue expanding their networks while also adding customers. More spectrum means less dropped calls and faster data speeds. It's worth repeating. AT&T can either wait for the government to auction off more spectrum which will be costly, or it will have to spend some capital to install more cellphone towers. Also costly. Companies that spend more money often times try to find ways to pass the costs onto customers, so if you are an AT&T customer, you run the risk of seeing higher bills in the future. That's a win for all consumers that aren't AT&T customers.

What the future holds: From a customer service stand point, for you AT&T customers, if you've been thinking about switching cellphone carriers or if your contract is up some time soon, it might be worth considering switching to Sprint or Verizon. With more and more heavy data usage iPhones and tablets flooding these networks, existing AT&T customers will continue to see more dropped calls or higher monthly bills for staying on the existing network. Until they spend on expanding their network, customer frustration with the company won't be getting much better any time soon. For non-AT&T customers, in the short term expect to see more ads and deals offered from Sprint and Verizon, trying to lure away AT&T customers or lock in existing customers with longer term, cheaper contracts. We like things that are cheaper. Paying less for existing services, or paying the same for expanded services is never a bad thing from a consumer stand point. That's why we like competition in the market so much. Competition creates better opportunities for consumers, and that's the main reason the deal fell through. Less carriers meant less competition and that would have not have benefited anyone other than the executives at AT&T and T-Mobile. For more on the failed deal, click here. ]]> http://gethuman.com/blog/AT_T__This_Has_To_Be_Rock_Bottom_296.html Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:55:22 +0000
So what's wrong with the company? It's simple. Customers can't stand the network. AT&T was the first company to have the iPhone and the number of users and amount of data being used drastically slowed the network, resulting in poor cellphone coverage and dropped calls. While the company claims to have invested billions of dollars this year to help improve the network, Verizon has since added the iPhone to it's cellphone offerings and hasn't experienced the slightest increase in customer disdain. In fact, some have argued that the addition has helped to make customers appreciate the company more and to keep sentiment towards the company high. Of course this isn't an issue that AT&T can't expect a quick fix immediately. These things take time and it's worth monitoring as time goes by. One thing for sure is that AT&T customers still aren't happy, be it in an official survey or an unofficial one on Facebook. It's an interesting read, so check out the link here when you can. ]]> http://gethuman.com/blog/AT_T__Protect_Your_Neck_254.html Mon, 13 Jun 2011 16:06:06 +0000 AT&T, which continually score terribly in customer service surveys, get fined repeatedly until they revamped the customer service department? It's not that far fetched an idea. Comcast has been fined in the past for customer service infractions but the amounts were always diminimus ($12,000 to a billion dollar company is like them dropping a penny in a homeless man's cup). But what would happen to the industry if Congress enforced a rule where companies would be forced to reimburse customers because they were bad at customer service? A one time charge of $10,000 isn't going to get a multi billion dollar firm's attention, but fining a company with millions of customers on a per customer basis would get things moving, quickly.

Every year terrific companies like Consumer Reports and JD Power & Associates conductive expensive, extensive customer service surveys, but companies, other than answering a few media inquiries, pretty much dismiss them. If these surveys could be attached to a system of fines, there's no doubt that customer service would start heading in the right direction, and rightfully so. We say it all the time in this space but it's not enough for companies to offer a line of products. They need to back them with solid customer service, and by attaching a monetary penalty to poor service, we'd start to see some change and actually get more companies that care about it's customers (are you listening Facebook?).

We'll keep an eye on things in Spain (along with admiring their national soccer team) as it could potentially be an interesting change of events in the customer service field. For more on the changes in Spain click here. ]]> http://gethuman.com/blog/AT_T__That_s_a__745_000_Fine_Folks_221.html Tue, 08 Mar 2011 19:49:21 +0000 AT&T. The company this week was fined $745,000 from the state of Connecticut for poor customer service surrounding extended outages across the state. According to the court ruling, AT&T failed to fix 90% of the customer's phone problems within a 24 hour period, thus resulting in the hefty fine. The original suit was for $1.2 million which would have covered outages across the state over the course of the year, but the fine was reduced as it was revealed the company actually did some work in order to restore phone service to some residents across the state. AT&T is appealing the fine, claiming the fine is unjust as they have spent more than $800 million in infrastructure across the state.

This isn't good news for AT&T on many fronts. First off, the $745,000 isn't a number to sneeze at. Granted, it's a company that has revenue in the billions of dollars, but lets not forget Connecticut is one of the smaller states. If this court case sets the precedent, then what's going to happen to the company's bottom line if some of the larger states like California can prove AT&T is at fault, and decide to sue? Much bigger problems. That being said, we're behind the court ruling as we've long argued for attaching financial responsibility to poor customer service. Once there's a dollar sign attached to the violations and poor service, companies will pay more attention. When you start eating away at the bottom line of the company, they start to listen. Hopefully this will only result in better customer service across the board for AT&T customers, and in all other industries.

For more on the court ruling, click here. ]]> http://gethuman.com/blog/At_T__Using_Twitter_to_Listen_To_You_193.html Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:29:21 +0000 AT&T article, but since the company is the perennial whipping boy of this space, we thought we would tell you about some of the positive changes the company has made in recent months. AT&T has been using Twitter to help improve service. The US carrier of the iPhone, often criticized for it's poor network and dropped calls, has recently turned to software that scans all of the Twitter feeds, in search of anything related to AT&T, in an effort to pinpoint the problem, and hopefully fix it faster than by calling the customer service line. The company has experienced overwhelming data connections in cities like New York and San Francisco and has combined a network monitoring system along with the Twitter technology, to help pin down where the problem exists. The new system will allow AT&T to figure out where the problem occurred, what kind of problem it is, and what time the customer experienced it. The system supposedly allows the company to dissect the problem twenty minutes before the customer service line would be able to.

Chances are the company is doing so in an effort to prevent customers from changing providers once the much rumored Verizon iPhone launches next year. Regardless, we applaud the effort of the company once again as they are working hard to fix some of the major problems that customers constantly complain about the company. Whether or not the system works is besides the point. The main point is that AT&T is listening to customer complaints, and is using the latest and greatest technology to adapt to the times. That's the kind of effort we like to see.

To read more about the changes at AT&T, click here. ]]>