Dear Mr. Stephenson:
I am one of your faithful customers, paying my bill every month and never complaining. Until now.
I do not ask much. I don’t need to make calls from the cargo hold of a jet liner at 30,000 feet – like Jack Bauer. No, in fact, all I want to do is call my mother. Yes, my mother. You see my parents are getting older and they really look forward to my calls at the end of each workday. And I enjoy the calls too – at least when I finally reach them. As I slide deeper into middle age, no matter what the slogan of the day is (“40 is the new 30,” nope “50 is the new 30!”), I am acutely aware that time is a precious commodity. (Mr. Stephenson, I hope your parents are around for you to call, and if not some other loved one or close friend.)
I live in a medium-sized East Coast City (Washington, DC actually – our nation’s capital for heaven’s sake); they live in the Midwest just outside of a small town called Chicago. So I’m not asking for something extraordinary I don’t think. I’m not trying to reach them off the coast of Antarctica and I’m not calling from a village in Central China. This should be basic stuff. Cell phone technology 1.0.
Well it doesn’t work. Time and time again I cannot make a lasting connection. Nearly every time I call, the conversation is dropped three or four times before, well, I give up and revert to that great technology of a bygone era – the “landline.” Thank goodness for the landline and Alexander Graham Bell.
I hear your expensive company ads that service will be improving in my area. But alas I see no change, nothing, nada, no improvement.
I do not expect perfection, even from the mighty new AT&T, but what is the plan? Although it’s not just about the money, what am I paying for? I am hardly alone. On behalf of myself, my parents, and the readers of my blog (The Corporate Observer): (1) tell us how and when your service will improve to a level of basic competency; and (2) set out a rebate program that provides me (and your millions of customers) a fair methodology for obtaining some form of credit for calls that are dropped. Otherwise, what is your incentive to improve?
Thank you Mr. Stephenson and I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Steve Berk