Comments on: This is not a considered post at all - wait for the proper one on validation :)

By: RudyV.

RudyV. — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:17:38 +0000

Its good to confirm that large corporate insensitivities are consistent across geographical boundaries. This shows us that the issues we face are not cultural or personal. The common link is Corporate innability to provide services in a manner we value.
The power we have as consumers is best leveraged at the point of purchase, when our money is still in our pockets and the retailers are salivating to get it. Here is an idea, a pre approved contract with carriers which we make them sign, which delineates our expectations of future charges. If they want our business, they should sign and agree on our expectations. no?
Rudy Vidal
http://www.willtheybuyagain.wordpress.com

By: Mulqueeny

Mulqueeny — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:57:43 +0000

By the way, gang, Jeremy’s blog is here: http://bpvocc.blogspot.com/ it rocks

By: Mulqueeny

Mulqueeny — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:27:14 +0000

Lloyd - I thank you, sir! You are right, the brand bit is w*nky, as is the spoiled brat bit at the end ‘I want my iphone’ ah well

BTW iphone still not working

By: Lloyd Davis

Lloyd Davis — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:08:26 +0000

Emma, forget the “brand” nonsense in paragraph 2 - this is just damned fine blogging.

By: Mulqueeny

Mulqueeny — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:33:53 +0000

Jeremy, you are bang on the money - someone give the man a badge - and a company

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:17:27 +0000

Sorry there is a complete non-squitur in what I wrote….

There is another step in the argument - the inertia of retailers is not intensional but leads to a crap level of service, a raft of hidden gotchas and utter confusion even amongst their own staff. The customer experience is ‘random’ - sometimes it owrks but mostly it doesn’t to the utter detriment of their brand (or what’s left of it)

Therefore when the first company to reinvent… etc etc

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:47:20 +0000

This is a terrible and extreme example of continuing problem in B2C retailing. What we at Charteris, my company, call the ‘new shopper’, who is web literate, impatient, fickle, fleet of foot and ingenious is just too quick for retailers. Retailers, like O2, who sell things (phones) and services (connectivity to telecoms networks) are just not agile enough to keep up, let alone understand the consequences of what every new deal strucutre might be. Their inertia is in part caused by arcane contract and tariff structures which were originally designed to lure us into mobile telephony. It’s now a commodity and should be as easy to define as your water supply. The felony is compounded by bundling in home broadband and VOIP.

I bought a racoon tariff from Orange with ‘free’ Broadband, VOIP, etc etc expecting it to wind up cheaper that my previous arrangement. After months of hassle which is too painful to even thing about now, I’m actually worse off and hooked into an 18 month deal.

The first company that reinvents their contractual arrangements so that what you are buying is as plain and simple as paying your water bill will clean up.

By: Mulqueeny

Mulqueeny — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:29:34 +0000

Nick, I would definitely do that, make sure you find out and double check every charge and exactly what you might have to go through.

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:38:20 +0000

Hi again Emma,
This gets worse and worse and is making me slightly nervous about buying an iPhone. There’s a shiney new Apple store opening today in Cambridge and I was tempted to go and buy one this afternoon but your post has made me think twice.

For what it’s worth, when I spoke to someone in my local O2 store, they said that because my existing O2 contract was taken out before September 2007, I would be able to assign my existing number over to the new iPhone. As my existing O2 tariff was £35 a month, the same as the lowest monthly iPhone contract, I figured I’d be OK but now I’m not so sure. Maybe double-checking with O2 would be prudent at this stage.

I hate dealing with large companies and speaking to some flat-foot instore doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence either.

I’d be very interested to hear how this all ends for you, so I’ll keep checking in.
Best,

Nick

By: What are you doing? « watfordgap’s travels

What are you doing? « watfordgap’s travels — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:31:46 +0000

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