Yesterday Telstra, Australia’s largest, formerly monopoly Telco announced that they would put a $2.20 administration fee on all payments made in person.
Even for Telstra, who have over the years dug up creative ways to convince their customers to go elsewhere, this is a coup.
Have the accountants finally taken over the madhouse? Is there anybody in marketing home (or are they all out to lunch with the ad agency?) Even if they are actually just catching up to the usurious practices of several of their competitors, the opportunity to spotlight the raping of their retail customers pockets has not been missed.
We all know that in-person service is more expensive than electronic, it is also a pretty good way for a business to connect with and understand its customers, but that is clearly of no value to Telstra who apparently know all there is to know about marketing and their customers.
Pity about the shareholders who have seen an impressive erosion of the value of their shareholdings, even before the impact of the WFC is taken into account. Is there a connection here?
So to the award, a new category, recognizing excellence in marketing stupidity, the “Twit Of The Year Award” (TOTYA) has been created to recognize Telstra’s excellence in pissing off customers. A stellar performance this year, on top of the continual failure of their bigpond servers to work reliably, a hefty premium sought for mobile internet connection, and just a general “get stuffed” attitude displayed to just about everybody throughout the year. Well done Telstra, a super performance!
i am shortly going to write personally to the new ceo of telstra. i shall enlighten himher about the calibre of his employees. i have long been disgusted about the lies about the free replacement of my cdma phone so they can continue to supply service to me as they contracted to do..
at the time they offered me a replacement phone &c and in return i ordered broadband. they assured me there will be no contract but i will be billed monthly as previously. (there was a mention of staying with us in a by-the-way offhand manner) they told me i will be on nextg and this was the only phone on offer. i didn’t want bluetooth, but was told it’s free so you might as well have it. i asked for unlimited downloads and was told nobody uses more than 12 gig but it slows then to dial up speed. i know dial up is faster than winking at me for hours before coming up.
telstra brought out a new phone called the telstra g7. i was impressed with it and made inquires about getting one. my mate got his on a $20 cap. it is a good phone. the man said i will have to pay $400 or some such for the rest of my contract. he told me it wasn’t possible to get a transcript of the verbal contract or a copy of the tape. he said in the carton the phone or modem came in was a sheet of paper which was terms of use and was the contract. this paper, obviously was available only after the carton was bought and taken delivery of. i don’t enjoy hassle but know i should have engaged the ombudsman. i am now contract-free and looking for a provider of broadband, landline and mobile for less than $200 per month. please advise me, somebody!
I would just write to him.
Senior people in large businesses are usually insulated from the day to day by layers of beaucracy, sometimes responding to a complaint can be a very worthwhile way of seeing what is going wrong.
Good luck.