Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

“We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.”- Lilly Tomlin (classic phone operator bit)

My Wacky Idea: What about a communications company that could (and wanted to) actually communicate? (Methinks both investors and customers would stampede to sign up.)

Wired Headline: It’s Silicon Valley vs. Telcos in Battle for Wireless Spectrum. (About the last auction of unused spectrum and perhaps our last best hope for creation of an alternative to the major carriers.) Snippet:

…To Ram Sriram, the Frontline backer who sits on Google’s board, the real problem isn’t with big web companies today. “It’s that the next Google can’t be born,” he says. “If I look at a business plan for mobile services, there’s always the question of how they’re going to reach the consumer. There are plenty of young companies seeking access to consumers, but the ability to get there is not that great.”

Yawn. As a former telecomm marketer (and full-time communicator in my biz), I just can’t get excited about spectrum, even it is our last best hope…’cuz… Access to consumers? Sure, you’ve got to have the spectrum, pipes, infrastructure - but if you treat your customers like a renewable commodity, it’s all for naught. (You end up doing all that “Crazy Eddie” special offer, low, low price! crap to offset the customer churn…which keeps churning because of the Crazy Eddie approach.) Spectrum, Schpectrum. Wireless, Clueless.

The “Get A Communications Clue” List:
1. Web sites that work well. For starters: don’t hide the contact information!
2. Real people answering the phone and quickly. A phone company that answers the phone, imagine that.
3. Short, concise, plain English bills. My Qwest bill is 9 pages! Of course, a paranoid cynic might think this is on purpose. If we can’t figure it out, and we can’t get to a live person quickly, we’ll just pay the thing.
4. Learn basic communications skills and technology. Example: Verizon Wireless, don’t load in a very long voice mail that you force me to listen to - and the recording is full of static and break-ups. It’s bad enough you’re taking my time with an unintelligible message but it’s your stuff, can’t you make it work? And, you’d love for me to give up my good ol’ land line and spend all my bucks with you, wouldn’t you? Sorry, twisted copper pair and analog still - well - works.
5. Stop waving the carrot and hiding the stick. All that fine print on special offers. Rebate hell. “Special offers” that are little more than baited traps. Stop that. Tell us what you will do, then do it. Don’t provide non-existent to lousy service and still expect to get paid (I can’t do it in my business, why should you be able to do so?)

And, more cluelessness:

Apple’s iPhone may be the most eagerly awaited gadget of the year, but when it finally goes on sale some time next month, only 30 percent of US mobile phone customers — those who subscribe to AT&T’s wireless service — will be able to use it. Verizon subscribers might have had a shot, but executives at that carrier nixed the idea of letting an Apple device onto their network years ago. It’s as if Mac owners had to connect to the internet through AT&T because their machines wouldn’t work on Verizon, Comcast or Time Warner Cable.

Helloooo? Verizon? I’m already poised to leave the nanosecond my contract is up…and I’m lusting after an iPhone….but, if you worked with an iPhone….hmmmmm….but, then there are always more customers, right?

P.S. I differ with Mr. Siriam - there are huge problems with the “big web” companies. Nobody has the magic marketing answer or approach. They all have blind spots (Even Behemoths Google and Amazon. Wanta talk about that? Leave a comment below.)

Read More: The entire Wireless article.
John Whiteside on AT&T’s web site, Department of Customer Prevention. (No, really, we don’t want to talk you. Just send money.)

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Tags: communications, wireless, spectrum Google, Amazon marketing troubleshooting, Verizon, customer service, AT&T, Qwest