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Yes, there is $10 DSL… but “the user experience is not… really state of the art”

An interesting article at on Web Pro News and how nobody wants AT&T’ $10 DSL. (The low-priced DSL offer was required by the FCC Federal Communications Commission when Cingular.) Nearly the same price as a high-speed dial-up (an oxymoron these days), AT&T offers a low priced package that many find hard to find, says the author Jason Lee Miller.



“When the Atlanta Journal-Constitution asked Randall Stephenson about criticism that the company’s $10 DSL offering, the one required under government conditions to approve AT&T’s merger with BellSouth, was difficult to find and not promoted, Stephenson responded like you might expect a CEO to:


“Deny, Downplay, Redirect.


“He answered:



“We haven’t made it difficult to find. To be honest with you, that’s not a product that our customers have clamored for. We still have $15 offers out there in the marketplace, even $20 offers, for 1.5 megabit speeds. Those are really kind of the minimum speeds that give a good user experience. So I don’t want to necessarily offer up a product where the user experience is not what I would consider really state of the art. That $10 product is kind of in that mode.” 


So, I tried to see if it’s even available in the area, as we have DSL and cable modems). I found that AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Request for [my home phone #] was in vain…
























We’re sorry. AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet is not available in your area. However, SBC is now joined with AT&T and we invite you to check availability for other services. Learn More.

If you believe you received this message in error, please verify the number and try again.

If you continue to receive this message in error, please contact our customer service center at 1-877-722-3755 Monday through Friday, 7 am to 9 pm and on Saturday, 8 am to 5 pm, closed on Sunday.

Thank you for your interest in AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet.


If you are unable to find AT&T’s $10 DSL, and to see if you are in a covered service area, go to https://swot.sbc.com/swot/promoLanding.do 


As I said in a prior post, Bill Gates said that it would broadband adoption should grow faster than it has. So would I, and I’d like to see the base upload/download speed go up esp as I regularly use my home connection to sync my mail and files in the evenings. It’s frustrating when customers abroad enjoy (comparable) 200Mbps for around $40…



“So, for the same price as 1Gbit access in HK, you can have up to 30Mbps in New Jersey and other major markets. In Japan, you can find Ethernet and FTTH up to 30Mbps of bandwidth: last year, analysts estimated that these high-speed lines are used by 22% of subscribers.”


Tags: AT&T, DSL, , , .

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Studios leaking torrents of an upcoming sitcom: what does Anne Sweeney think about this?

I like it when a meeting ends early and up pops an IM on Office Communicator from a friend in media and entertainment (with a link no less) on something just too strange that you have to ask: “what the heck were the thinking when they did that?” 

This is just too much.

I’ve noted previously how ABC distributed free ad-supported TV episodes via the web, and now this: Lifehacker linked to Smaran’s post on Torrentfreak.com, “an anonymous executive at Warner Bros. admitted to purposefully leaking torrents of the upcoming ABC sitcom Pushing Daises to create excitement about the show.”

“In a recent interview for the Seattle Post, I speculated that it seemed likely that TV executives and writers were purposefully leaking their yet-to-air shows to BitTorrent to build up hype and an audience. It looks like I wasn’t too far off.

“An anonymous Warner Brothers Television executive has admitted he helped leak the pilot of “Pushing Daisies“, an upcoming TV show. His reason? He wanted to make sure the show “got out there,” and wanted to “help the cause.” The executive didn’t upload it himself; he got his neighbour’s kid to do it. And the kid was delighted to, because it pushed up his ratio on some private network.

“You might think, as I did, that someone made this story up. Turns out, the executive used his work e-mail ID (yep, @warnerbros.com or whatever) when he contacted Rick Ellis of AllyourTV.com. When asked about what made him leak the pilot, he replied:

“I just thought it was a good idea. Even though […] I don’t have any direct stake in the show, it’s a really great project. It’s tough to describe, though, and while it makes great sense once you’ve seen it, it’s one of those shows that will only work if people do tune in at least once.

“Which, by the way, is one of the reasons that ABC and Warners are promoting the show in all sorts of venues. The pilot has been screened at everything from auditions for ABC reality shows to Comic-Con. We all believe in the show. And if I can do something that might in some small way help…I can live with that.

“One last thing…some of this is also about building pressure with the network. I don’t think anyone here involved with “Traveler” was exactly thrilled with the treatment ABC gave the show. But it didn’t really have any champions inside either company. And I suppose all of us are hoping that this show gets the support it deserves.”

Think about this statement: “… some of this is also about building pressure with the network…“

Amazing.

Is this marketing gone awry or an interesting way to get viewers to look at a new show?

And I wonder what Anne Sweeney, co-chair of Disney Media Networks, thinks about this? Sure, viral marketing is one thing, but losing the draw to your portal (not to mention the advertising dollars that support free episodes) and potentially losing the support of advertisers and local affiliates are all together bigger issues. 

Back to work.

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Seattle Times: a look at some of the best and worst in customer service

Today in the Seattle Times, Charles Bermant writes about the best and worst in customer service. He writes…



“… that some companies actually know how to respond electronically. And those who do so might not be the ones you would expect.”


Specifically, he describes his experience with his mobile operator as well as a friend’s experience with Shop-Vac…



“We have, however, examples of the best and worst. Ironically, this round finds a consumer-level garage appliance beating the pants off a major cellular provider.


I’m not surprised.


Some of the best customer service, I’ve found, comes in the seemingly lowest-of-tech companies and services… such as great hotels (where the best use the latest technology to know as much about their customer’s needs as they do to prepare their detailed bills with any number of arcane charges and taxes), popular restaurants and successful retail stores.


But I see that same spirit across many of the product groups at Microsoft, too. Whether it’s one of the staff in a product team with a popular blog or a group managing an early adopter programme on Connect, many employees and groups go out of their way to help customers and partners. Many groups run their efforts like their own businesses, meeting with customers to better understand their needs, working along side customers as they deploy and use products, and providing applicable feedback (often in one to many forums, as lots of people will run into the same issues).    


Entrepreneur magazine has an article that looks at the best customer service ideas from (way back) 1999, ones that are truly timeless…



  1. Hire The Right People.

  2. Make Service A Core Value.

  3. Empower Front-Line Employees.

  4. Solicit And Use Feedback.

  5. Pick The Right Customers.

Continues the article…


“Perhaps your first move, Berry says, should be to institute a formal measurement system to calculate the true costs of mediocre service. “If business owners take the time to properly measure the revenue lost to customers who left due to poor service and the extra costs involved in reperforming a service that wasn’t performed properly the first time, the number they come up with will be so large, it will never again be an issue as to whether service quality is important in their company,” promises Berry. “It’s instant religion.”


Food for thought.

Also of interest, Inc. Magazine’s Best Customer-Service Practices, a collection of links to interesting and helpful articles.

Tags: Customer service, customer feedback

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HBR on Companies and the Customers Who Hate Them

A quick note and a thanks to the folks for the fwd of this article from Harvard Business Online on “Companies and the Customers Who Hate Them,” an excerpt from the Harvard Business Review article by Gail McGovern and Youngme Moon…



“The Idea: A company’s most profitable customers may be those who make the worst purchasing decisions. Consider retail banking. Depending on the minimum balance consumers agree to keep in their accounts, banks set particular interest rates and fees. If a customer’s balance falls below the minimum, he pays penalties. If it climbs well above the minimum, he’s stuck with a low interest rate. Either way, the bank wins; the customer loses.




“Sometimes all it takes to trigger a mass defection from a company-centric firm is the appearance of a customer-friendly competitor—one that puts customer satisfaction and transparency first.




“Example: Virgin Mobile USA offers a pay-as-you-go pricing plan with no hidden fees, no time-of-day restrictions, no contracts, and straightforward, reasonable rates. It has nearly five million subscribers and a customer churn rate well below the industry average. Customer satisfaction hovers in the 90th percentile. And more than two-thirds of customers reported recommending Virgin to friends and family.”


If you are in a position to work with and listen to customers, what are you doing to provide greater value to your customers?


The full article is available here.

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Of interest: ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley talked with Satya Nadella about Windows Live Search

Of interest: ZDNet‘s Mary Jo Foley spoke with Satya Nadella, in charge of the Search & Advertising Platform Group, in her post today What’s next on Microsoft’s search agenda? …



“Nadella, who was named as the head of Microsoft’s combined Search and Ad Platform Group in March 2007, also is shepherding his team through a planned fall Search update, as well as an upcoming Spring search refresh. Nadella said his goal is to do a major search refresh twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall, for the foreseeable future. In between these updates, Microsoft will continue to roll out incremental search improvements, such as the new facial-detection search functionality it recently added to its Live Image Search.


“Nadella said the areas where Microsoft can innovate in search fall into three primary buckets:



1. Core: Microsoft will improve search relevance — not just by tweaking the search algorithm, but also by tuning the data platform and mining, he said. “We believe we can compete with anyone on relevance,” Nadella said.



2. User Experience: Microsoft has 55 million searchers. (Google has twice that many, according to Nadella.) The question is “how to get searchers to search more with us,” Nadella said. Promotions like the give-aways by the Live Search Club are hardly the only strategy Microsoft has up its sleeve here.


3. Integration: Microsoft also is working to integrate its search results, search application-programming interfaces (APIs) and search engine into existing Microsoft properties. This means everything from integrating Local Search with Microsoft Outlook, to making Live Search the engine that powers Office Live, Nadella said. “We have a set of APIs today that you can take, and (you can) use our search results with any other property or application,” he said.”


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