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Telekom is going out of its way to annoy me.
It’s not enough that they only annoy me when I can’t avoid contacting them.
They’re now following me.
And their Voice Response system flossie is getting far too chummy for my liking….
They’ve got a new CEO who – from the reports I’ve read – appears to be a clued up guy.
My expectations are that thing improve rapidly.
By tomorrow, for example.
Mr. Hoettges
My interactions with Telekom over the last few weeks are symptomatic of the challenges facing you in your new role.
I wish you luck.
1. A door-to-door salesman arrives unannounced, claims to be able to save me money and becomes aggressive when I decline to show him my Telekom invoices and refuse to discuss contractual issues on the doorstep.
2. You cancel the plan I’ve been happy with for a number of years and propose – surprise, surprise – a more expensive alternative.
3. I investigate my options and and identify a plan that’s cheaper and more appropriate to my needs. I then spend over 30 minutes on the phone, struggling with a IVRS that is painfully slow and pathetically personal, attempting to engage in a conversation with me (“Hmmm, Sie wollen den T-Service…. Aha, Sie moechten den Kundendienst” in an attempt to contact a real person.
4. I decide to deactivate a preselection for 01051.de. This must be in your interest – it means that I don’t automatically make a detour around your network. After another 30 minutes with the IVRS lady (who I think is now trying to make a pass at me), a CSR unenthusiastically agrees to delete the preselection. That was 4 weeks ago. Nothing’s happened. I don’t expect anything to happen.
5. This evening I’m cold-called by a Call Centre agent who wants to propose 3 new plans which are going to please me. She knows that I have an ISDN connection and informs me that I can use it to access the internet. Unsurprisingly, I’m aware of this. She asks me if I use Telekom for voice traffic. The fact that we’re engaged in voice traffic via a Telekom line doesn’t faze her.
She has no idea if Telecom is my DSL-provider, she has no idea which current plan I have, she has no idea of my monthly usage profile. She has no idea of why she’s calling. Neither do I.
The only reason that your market share won’t fall more rapidly is that your customer base can’t stand the pain of getting through to your CSRs to cancel the contract.
You have simple choices.
– Identify your high value/high margin residential customers.
– Strip out complication.
– Offer meaningful bundles
– Make dealing with Telekom easy.
Feel free to call on my services as a consultant. I’m not cheap, but I’m bloody good.
And I have first hand experience of your challenges.
Regards
John Burland
You Must Be From Away 
>”The only reason that your market share won’t fall more rapidly is that your customer base can’t stand the pain of getting through to your CSRs to cancel the contract.”When you come back and pick out your phone/toll/internet service providers, can you let me know who you’ve picked out? Above is the only reason we’re still on Telecom for international calls. I can’t deal with them – I’ve had an intermittent problem for the last 7 years and fixer uppers have come to my house several times, but they “honestly can’t tell” me why when I answer my phone, it automatically hangs up 1 out of every 10 or so times!!
>you should have a look at thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8RjrA05I8wnot sure if it’s a real tv show