And Of Course, FCC Sides With Verizon In Argument With Cable Cos.
from the no-surprise-there dept
Last month we pointed out that the cable companies had filed a complaint with the FCC accusing Verizon of some shady practices in trying to get customers to stay, even after they'd already agreed to switch to cable. Since most customers want to keep their home phone number, the cable companies needed to contact Verizon to make the switch. At that point, Verizon would immediately contact those customers to prevent them from switching. As the cable companies pointed out, this gave the telcos an unfair advantage. They were using information they learned from elsewhere (the group in charge of managing number portability) to steal customers back from the cable companies. Of course, given how today's FCC tends to think that telcos are always right and cable co's are always wrong, it will surprise probably none of you, that the FCC has no problem with Verizon's practices. Perhaps the cable companies should have waited until a new FCC commish was sworn in before making this complaint.
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Filed Under: cable, fcc, number portability, telcos
Companies: comcast, fcc, time warner, verizon
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I'm actually agreeing with the FCC for once...
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Re: I'm actually agreeing with the FCC for once...
Not quite. The difference is that Verizon owns the rights to the actual telephone number -- so any changes to that number have to go through Verizon... giving them extra info and allowing them to cut in in the middle of the process, rather than waiting to an account is actually cancelled.
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How does this prevent a switch
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Re: How does this prevent a switch
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unhappy customers
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How they prevent you...
The guy on the phone absolutely refused to do it. I told him, "You can do it now or I can call the FCC and the CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission) and you can do it a lot more expensively." He didn't budge.
So, I fired off two simple e-mails saying that AT&T was refusing to release my number. This was a Thursday.
All of a sudden, I got 4 e-mails, 2 phone calls and 3 letters from AT&T and by Tuesday, it was all switched over to Vonage.
Just report them. It has really worked for me in the past.
And I believe that each provider has to release the number. I have heard that some people have had trouble getting Comcast and Vonage to release numbers at certain times.
So, yes, in theory, they could all try to woo you back.
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Good Policy
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This is actually fair
These companies are required to release the phone numbers from what I understand, so these people saying "well they wouldn't release my number..." either have no clue what the laws are or aren't willing to fight for it. Neither of which is Verizon's or any other companies fault.
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"Winback" Programs
I worked at the Baby Bell Ameritech in 1996, now an SBC company. We had a great deal of success in winning back customers who had left to AT&T for local phone service. This was not even a "mid process" thing. The customers had left weeks before.
We simply had a call center contact the customers and offer them discounts on service, usually a monthly credit for a few months, and a free switching process. YES, a very high proportion came back to Ameritech.
I was amazed at how little it took. The normal customer acquisition cost for new customers (which includes advertising, marketing, etc.) is about $300, but the Winback program succeeded with $30. Good deal for the company.
Turns out, the customers often ONLY switched to AT&T because that company offered them $30 or so, so they gladly switched back for the same.
One thing you should all realize, too, is that if you're leaving one oligopolist because you don't like the service quality, you probably shouldn't expect much better from the next oligopolist.
There is a higher variability in customer support quality between two individual Call Center Reps sitting side by side for the same company, than there is between CSRs for two different phone companies. That is, your experience depends more on the individual person you speak with than on which phone company you call.
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Does att
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