Sales Prevention Tips, Brought to You by AT&T

[Bruce Allen]

AT&T is giving a clinic on what happens when the marketing people insist on rushing a product to market before the back end is ready to handle the demand.

For several months, I have been assaulted with promotional direct mail jocking AT&T's new broadband/video service called U-Verse. In increasingly shrill terms, AT&T has insisted that I will enjoy a better video experience and more robust broadband by switching from my current providers. I have been itching for YEARS to dump Bright House and their $80 a month package that features NO MOVIE CHANNELS, but lots of penalties, extra fees and indifferent customer service. U-Verse promised me more channels and twice the broadband speed, no contract, and a bunch of freebies to switch. Three weeks ago I agreed, and called to sign up and schedule the installation.

On the day I called, the tech was unable to complete my sign-up. Gave me an account number, but could not finish the registration. Had to call me back the next day to give me my new account number and schedule the installation. I made them deduct $20 a month from my bill for the next 6 months.

Guy shows up a week later to do the installation (on time) at 9 am, fiddle farts around all day, gets the broadband and one TV hooked up, says I need to call to schedule another installation appointment to get the other two TVs connected.

I spend two days trying to get through on the website and the toll free number, without success. Finally, I am able to email a request for them to call me, which they do two days later, leaving a message on my machine asking me to call them.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I finally make my way through the phone tree and schedule the second installation appointment, another 6-8 hours a week from now in which someone, namely me, needs to be in the house the entire time. I plan to make the second installer give me free movie channels for the first 6 months, too. It's now three weeks since I decided to switch to AT&T, my installation is not yet complete, and I will have killed two full days horsing around with the installation.

AT&T's new tag line is "Free Yourself." That's what I feel like doing, from my U-Verse service. Seriously, it needs to be pretty damn bad to have me longing for the good old days (last month) with Yahoo DSL and Bright House.