andrewda@idsvax.ids.com (Andrew R. D'Uva) (09/27/90)
In article <12457@accuvax.nwu.edu>, gtisqr!toddi@yang.cpac. washington.edu (Todd Inch) writes: > And you want to talk about Customer Service? Took six calls, with > LOTS of auto-attendant menus and "on-hold" time to..... The customer service aspect is a real problem for Sprint. We had just about gotten fed up with them when they initiated a "Premier Accounts" group (our usage was running $700-800/mo) with a different number. Service was MUCH better on that basis. There were other problems. > I also don't like being slammed, but that did show me true costs, and > they (AT&T) paid for the changeover themselves. I've found that AT&T is often more than willing to pay associated switchover charges or startup fees, usually by LD certificates. In our case, this added up to several hundred dollars saved. You definitely should not be afraid to ask for a "deal," after all, they DO want your business. Sprint does not seem to want that business. When I had almost decided to switch back to AT&T (their rates were cheaper ... more on that later) I called Sprint and asked them if our business was really important to them (i.e., how could they match rates, offer premiums, etc) and received nothing but Sprint's much praised "can even hear a pin drop silence." They just didn't want to be flexible. > Interesting note here, GTE swears the LD carrier cannot authorize a > changeover (maybe local policy?), that the subscriber has to call it > in himself, but obviously it can happen here. In our case, the local company in one area (Bell South) switched over primary access without EVER contacting me. This was in line with my wishes, but I never even spoke to them ... just AT&T. New England Tell (NYNEX), on the other hand, practically demanded everything in writing before they would do anything ... (And, as it turned out, they flubbed the service order even after I had put it in writing!) I guess that the RBOCs vary in policy application. Now about AT&T and their rather novel approach: AT&T came to us, analyzed our calling patterns and told us that they could not, in fact, save us money over Sprint WATS. BUT>>> What they could do was enroll us with a reseller of their service. All customer service and billing would be handled through AT&T, but we would incur a small monthly fee ($25) from the reseller. If I agreed to this, I could "buy" AT&T service as part of a large group of people in my area (I don't even know who they are) at rates significantly lower than Sprint's. Technically I have PRO-WATS, but the people at AT&T Pro-Wats can't figure out (I called them) where the additional discounts are coming from. My AT&T representative claims that this is a convenient way for AT&T to avoid what she called "restrictive regulation." Worked out quite well, too. Andrew D'Uva andrewda@idsvax.ids.com <== Internet ((Add your favorite 3K signature file))
jdominey@bsga05.attmail.com (09/29/90)
In V10 Issue 688, "Andrew R. D'Uva" <andrewda@idsvax.ids.com> writes: > AT&T came to us, analyzed our calling patterns and told us >that they could not, in fact, save us money over Sprint WATS. >BUT>>> What they could do was enroll us with a reseller of their >service. All customer service and billing would be handled through >AT&T, but we would incur a small monthly fee ($25) from the reseller. >If I agreed to this, I could "buy" AT&T service as part of a large >group of people in my area (I don't even know who they are) at rates >significantly lower than Sprint's. Technically I have PRO-WATS, but >the people at AT&T Pro-Wats can't figure out (I called them) where the >additional discounts are coming from. My AT&T representative claims >that this is a convenient way for AT&T to avoid what she called >"restrictive regulation." Worked out quite well, too. A couple of notes about AT&T's reseller policy (as it has been explained to me). The situation that Mr. D'Uva describes is pretty common, with one exception. Your salesperson should NEVER enroll you under a reseller/ aggregator's program. Those organizations are NOT part of AT&T, and other than the agreements and tariffs under which they buy our services, there is no connection between us. There are some co-marketing agreements, but these are limited. We AT&T salesfolk are not supposed to even give the appearance of endorsing their services. If a customer asks me about an aggregator, I tell him/her as much about aggregators and resellers as I can. I try to avoid mentioning any of them by name. When faced with losing a customer to the competition because of a price difference, I would tell them what aggregators can do. I could provide - verbally - the names and numbers of some aggregators. Policy says I don't give the list in writing - could be construed as an endorsement. Now it is good for you, the customer, to get our service at a discount. And it's certainly better for AT&T than having you stay with the competition. But aggregators and resellers vastly complicate the vendor/customer relationship. And some of those guys engage in really marginal business practices - e.g. claiming over the phone to be part of AT&T, vastly overstating the savings available, even switching service to another LD carrier without notifying the customer. Mr. D'Uva's sales rep was also wrong to imply that our tariffs (the Multi- Location WATS plan, Customer-Specific Term Plan, Revenue Volume Pricing Plan, and even Software Defined Network) are some kind of cheesy way to get around the FCC. We set them up to give discounts to customers who promise to deliver a high level of usage. The aggregator phenomenon is a side effect, and one AT&T is not entirely happy with. Jack Dominey|AT&T Commercial Marketing|800-241-4285|AT&TMail !dominey My own opinions: Not to be confused with an official statement.