The title seemed negative to me (I thought he complained and the CEO said "we're done with you!").<p>But really, the T-Mobile CEO was helping -- the author wanted out of his contract (well, out of the $200 fee).<p>(EDIT: The original title was "I emailed the CEO of T-Mobile and he killed my contract, no joke")
It's terrible customer service.<p>The CEO should not have to get involved. Status as a journalist should not be required. The first doesn't scale, and the second, if true, is hopelessly corrupt.<p>Every customer support supervisor ought to be able to make an exception based on reasonable circumstances.<p>The article should have ended with "and anyone else in my situation, or a similar one, should contact T-Mobile customer support. If the first line worker can't help you, they should be able to put you through to a supervisor who can, based on the policy changes that T-Mobile has implemented."<p>Anything less at best means a flood of emails in the CEO inbox, and at worst continued customer dissatisfaction.
It's funny how people immediately mock someone's sense of entitlement. You know what? Sometimes you indeed are entitled to something and the only reason you don't is because everyone else just accepts the sewer everyone is in.<p>I once received an apology letter after helping my mom bringing her complaint to the governing board of deutsche Bank. Because god forbid she was right and that douchebag bank worker wasn't.<p>Indeed just wow. I wish people would complain more, when there is a need.<p>What do I mean with when there is a need? That's the thing. Were not supposed to be machine(even though a lot of people wish for the opposite). Were supposed to evaluate the choices given to us and act accordingly.<p>And for all of you running a small business and thinking of the douchebag client you don't want. I apologize, because I know exactly who you're talking about and you're right.
I've got a theory that this can all be explained by cost of communication.<p>For a long time, word of mouth was what determined what people thought of businesses. Plus, high cost of communication kept most businesses small.<p>Newer communication technologies made very large companies practical, but the tech was expensive enough that it was most effectively used by those large companies both internally and externally). This a) meant a large company could override word of mouth with enough advertising, and b) encouraged the rise of professional managers, who spent very little time in contact with customers and mainly knew what their underlings told them.<p>But now, with the Internet, the pendulum swings back. Things like email, Facebook, and Twitter have brought low-cost one-to-one and one-to-many communication to the masses. Advertising doesn't work as well, and one person with a good or bad experience can tell hundreds, thousands, millions. If a CEO wants to know what people are saying, a simple Twitter search will tell them, with no underlings to soften or filter.<p>So smarter companies are recognizing that they can get a competitive advantage by acting like a small-town business has all along: the person in charge opens themselves up for unfiltered feedback, using that to fix their organization and get great word of mouth in the process.<p>What I really wonder is where the new equilibrium point is. Advertising has less manipulative power, but it's not gone. And large companies will try to control new media just like they tried to control what turns up in the press.
I've had a mobile phone since the Motorola Brick days. Over the years I've grumbled and complained about various cell phone companies policies, dealt with contract obligations, bad service, horrible experiences with switching plans, etc., etc. The worst of the worst was moving to the bay in late 2007 and having to use AT&T on an iPhone.<p>Last year I bought a Nexus 4 from Google and signed up for a prepaid T-Mobile plan. A few months later they switched over to offering no-contract plans and I followed suit by putting both my kids and myself on a single plan. My entire experience with the company since signing up has been nothing short of stellar. Great customer service, low wait times while calling in, friendly faces in the stores, and always a willingness to do whatever it took to make me happy with my service.<p>My contract, with my two kids tacked on, is about what I paid Verizon a month for an iPhone. About the only complaint I have with T-Mobile is that I can't really surf the net while I'm in the BART tube under the Bay on the way into the city. Other than that, it's been a great experience!<p>It just goes to show that one person at a company, with the power to make real changes, is what it takes to change an entire industry. It feels great to give my money to a company that actually cares about customer service.
Desire Paths 101. See Tom Hulme talk. <a href="http://mcbennett.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/tom-hulme-john-maeda/" rel="nofollow">http://mcbennett.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/tom-hulme-john-mae...</a><p>Taking inspiration from Urban Design where a path runs along the outside of a park expecting everyone to take the architected route. However people cut through the middle when they don't like the given route, following their desire path. Over time, the grass wastes away from the thousands of footsteps and bicycles that take their preferred route. The park owners have a choice to put up a sign saying "Do not walk on the grass" or altenatively pave the new path.<p>In business, when consumers take a new path, there is an option to pave their path as a new product line. Watch Tom's talk above to see how Facebook didn't pave their users desire path giving space for snapchat to grow. An example where a business put up the "do not walk on the grass" sign is Kickstarter who blogged, "Kickstarter is not a store," moving away from the desire path.<p>In this case, the CEO of T-mobile has helped a user cross the middle of the park, the question remains whether he should pave it.
It's a good thing that John Legere places customer care/service as a high priority, but it seems like you didn't take the time to figure out the problem yourself.<p>Instead of "getting frustrated" and taking the issue to the CEO, you could have spent some time and effort to resolve it yourself.<p>Also, this post doesn't provide enough information about your issue and why you had a misunderstanding. If it did, then it would be more meaningful.
I want to like T-Mobile, but I'm in the middle of the US with access to 100+ Mbps Internet but no T-Mobile signal in my house. T-Mobile is pushing itself hard in my area, but they just don't have the coverage.
A similar technique worked for me. I had an IOmega Jaz drive, which accomodated 1GB cartridges. (The same company produced the better known Zip drive.)<p>The cartridges kept getting stuck, and any attempt to remove the drive seemed to completely destroy the hardware. After several replacements, I got fed up and asked for a refund. They weren't going for it. I finally called the CEO, and received a refund pretty quickly.<p>I suspect that it's cheaper to just refund a few bucks and make the irritant go away, rather than deal with it at that level.
This isn't particularly scalable for T-Mobile and I'd say they haven't done themselves or their customers any favours. The customer service experience should be the same regardless of whether you go in from the top or the bottom. If a customer has a better experience by going in from the top, I think that just implies that the customer service frontlines are failing.<p>It's good that the CEO is so accessible, but no reasonable customer should need to reach out to the CEO in order to get the a good CS experience.
> "But how is that so? I have had a full upgrade since November."<p>Usually, phone upgrades are offered starting two years into a three-year plan. They don't want to let the contract expire before they try to reel you back in with an upgrade; that'd be incredibly dangerous for retention. They want to offer you the phone while you're still good and legally bound to them, but when you <i>feel</i> like you're almost out.
We live in a world were people feel entitled to bring their little contractual issues all the way up to the CEO of a company with over 30 MM customers. So you either believe
a) you're above those other 30 MM and can just do your CEO 1:1s if need be
or
b) you foolishly believe that the CEO of a major corp has the time and willingness to deal with customer support for 30 Million people.<p>Just wow
I'm in a similar situation with Sprint where I wanted to get an iPhone 5s as I have had the 4s since its introduction.<p>Well I was told I couldn't get it until Dec. or I could pay $150 to get out of my contract and get a new contract to get the 5s now.<p>I actually ended paying the fee and after doing so was told to text 1311 for more info. There in the text it said I could upgrade now or go with their new and better plan OneUp. No one told me about OneUp which is the more modern and better option. Sigh I spent $150 because Sprint hasn't trained their reps on this program, but they put the info in their SMS marketing....errrr :(<p>Well Sprint did solve that issue but then after solving it and because its still a new option/plan mis-information abounds. Getting a new iPhone with Sprint or trying has taken to much time and effort and have tried to work with them for the past two weeks. But I'm done... See ya Sprint!
On the one hand, it's nice to see that executives are receptive to their customers. However, the OP clearly states that they did not quality for a free transfer, and the fact that they got it seems sort of arbitrary. What if the CEO hadn't responded, or if the other executive hadn't chosen to cancel the contract? What if that person were having a bad day, and chose not to make such a gesture to the OP? One data point isn't conclusive, especially under such odd circumstances.<p>Good service is service that is both high in quality and in consistency. I highly doubt the ability of a single CEO to handle every email in the same way (if at all), and I'm not sure if I like the idea of unwarranted perks being handed out at the discretion of executives. It seems too much like a lottery, especially because the OP did not qualify for the transfer in the first place.
There's the old but true "never take a No from someone who doesn't have the authority to say Yes." So in most situations, the CEO wouldn't be helping, thus the customer service agents should have some authority. I've worked in a call center, I know the kind of BS that's pushed. Everyone just says what needs to be said to get the sale or get the customer off the phone (if it's a problem).<p>As an aside, I once had a problem with my Citibank and I found a little known 'elite team' of Citibank people who called me in a foreign country, on my cell phone, within minutes of me contacting them via email and resolved my problem in about 2 minutes flat. And they reversed charges I felt I shouldn't have had in the first place.
Well this is nice of T-Mobile and shows they do somewhat care about customer service. I can chime in and add my experience with the English (American?) division of T-Mobile: they responded to a mention at a social network while I was not even really meaning to ask them a question, I merely mentioned them. The Dutch division is not as great, but oh well.<p>Still, I'd say it's how it's supposed to be. In the Netherlands it'd be illegal to upgrade contracts like this. You can't start charging more without giving the user an option to quit the contract for free (or continue the old contract for the old price). Also after the contract period (one or two years), consumers have a right to cancel the contract each month, also for free.
I used t-mobile from around 2000 to the end of 2007 in NYC. Never had any problems but data was not a big issue back then. They even assigned me a 212 mobile number from a batch of 10 numbers that they received.<p>With the right wording and timing, these things happen. Around 2002, I was searching what books to buy and e-mailed Amazon support what books Jeff Bezos has read in the past 6 months. They replied immediately to told me to ask him directly providing his e-mail address. I forwarded the e-mail and got a reply back with a list. This was even cooler than having a 212 number.
I tweeted him a few weeks ago after I wrote a follow-up to a letter I dispatched to their legal department a few weeks ago over the $299 cancellation fee <a href="http://onemanmilitia.blogspot.com/2013/09/to-get-out-of-my-contract-with-t-mobile.html" rel="nofollow">http://onemanmilitia.blogspot.com/2013/09/to-get-out-of-my-c...</a><p>I agree with the comments I've seen here - their customer service is helpless, and I explained so in my letter.
Oh, what a huge surprise. A CEO of a major corporation making sure that a journalist is taken care of.<p>Talk to any tech journalist. They all get special treatment now and again.
Once, my phone actually flushed down the toilet, and I tweeted about it. T-mobile ended up sending me an upgraded version of my phone the next day, for free! Pretty sure they did it because they were laughing so hard about my ridiculousness. But that's cool by me. :)
I wouldn't conclude that this is good customer service. More bad service as the support team couldn't (or weren't officially allowed to) kill the contract. This was just a case of ultimate escalation which was brought to resolution as quickly as possible.