I emailed the CEO of T-Mobile and he killed my contract

http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/blog/2013/03/t-mobile-blog-customer-service.html?page=all

by amerf1 • 13 years ago

211 96 13 years ago

ulfw• 13 years ago

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.

Just wow

epochwolf• 13 years ago

People would email Steve Jobs all the time. This isn't a new thing.

Before the Internet CEOs would get letters.

dandrews• 13 years ago

Yep. Back in the PCs Limited days I wrote Michael Dell an appreciative letter for some out-of-warranty customer service I'd received. Got a nice acknowledgement letter back from a VP. That little exchange indirectly earned Dell a lot of business from my employer in later years when we dumped HP and were casting about for a new desktop provider.

Woost• 13 years ago

Your rant is quite misguided. In this case, the CEO explicitly asked for people to email him:

"I discovered that Legere put an emphasis on customer service -- listening to calls and even sharing his email address."

From the other article: "had customer complaint emails forwarded to him. He also gave out his email address, ..., for anyone to contact him."

batbomb• 13 years ago

When you realize the world consists of people, and you realize the customer is just a person, just like the CEO is a person, then this doesn't seem so strange. I don't like the world where a CEO is somehow better than the average person, completely insulated from customers, from real people.

Denvercoder9• 13 years ago

You missed the part where the CEO announced that he wanted to focus on customer service and put his e-mail address for anyone with problems to personally contact him?

thebranman• 13 years ago

Sometimes you just need to deal with someone who is not only outside of the original situation but has the power to do something about it. The complete corporate directory isn't available for people to sift through to find someone to help us. We just know about customer service...and the CEO (more or less). For example, back when the white plastic MacBooks came out, my wife got one -- it was riddled with problems, including case cracking and loads of other problems (don't remember them anymore). Long story short, months of getting no where with regular Apple support (going through repairs, weeks w/o her laptop), she emailed Steve Jobs. She got a brand new laptop as a replacement. It's unfortunate to have to contact a CEO to deal with a seemingly low-level problem but as customers paying thousands of dollars (on a MacBook, or over the course of a cell phone contract), when we have a problem that we can't get rectified through low-level employees and their supervisors, what are we supposed to do?

rpedela• 13 years ago

People are just people. CEO is not special.

gkoberger• 13 years ago

The title seemed negative to me (I thought he complained and the CEO said "we're done with you!").

But really, the T-Mobile CEO was helping -- the author wanted out of his contract (well, out of the $200 fee).

(EDIT: The original title was "I emailed the CEO of T-Mobile and he killed my contract, no joke")

CamperBob2• 13 years ago

Yes, this is one of those cases where the HN mod(s) should have made some editorial tweaks to the title.

derefr2• 13 years ago

I had to think about it for a second. You're meant to read it like "killing something is bad, but contracts are bad, so killing a contract is good."

Although it'd be perfectly valid to use "contract" as a metonym for "service" or "account", people don't tend to; the contract is just the evil thing binding you to pay for your account, and doesn't get mentally associated (by most consumers) with the service itself. So killing a contract is wholly good.

But forcing people to go through a thought-process like this to figure out what is meant is bad "communications-design UX", and the editor could probably have come up with something clearer.

dwc• 13 years ago

People are not forced to go through any thought process. Most people will take it at face value (as I did) and assume that service was cancelled for having the gall to email the CEO. I clicked through only because I have had good experience with T-mobile customer service and was surprised to see something like this. So the misleading/ambiguous headline actually got me to read the article where an accurate headline wouldn't have.

adcuz• 13 years ago

Agreed, this title makes it sound like the CEO flipped out.

ckozlowski• 13 years ago

However, it did get us all to click it thinking "OMG, no wai! Grrr, corporate douchebags! Grab your pitchforks, netizens!"

Then we saw what it really was.

So, well done, clickbait. =)

dingaling• 13 years ago

Sometimes CEOs ( or Managing Directors ) do 'sack' customers. The MD of my ISP did so, a few years back:

http://revk.www.me.uk/2009/11/being-rude-to-customer.html

Quote: "so I've decided to give her 30 days notice, as we can"

hvass• 13 years ago

I would strongly bet it is phrased negatively on purpose. Let's ask an honest question, which one are you more likely to click on?

mherdeg• 13 years ago

Yes, it's pretty funny that 90%+ of "contracts" in the US mobile phone marketplace are things the buyer would be much happier not to have.

Steko• 13 years ago

I'm sure for 100% of mortgages people would love to just make a down payment and get the deed and not have to make any other payments for 15+ years but there's nothing ironic about the need to fulfill contractual obligations that aren't awesome for you.

pallandt• 13 years ago

Sadly, I don't think it's restricted to the U.S. I live somewhere in Europe and mobile phone contracts are always less advantageous (fewer benefits, higher cost) as compared to regular prepaid cards. The only reason I've held up a contract is out of fear of simply not running out of minutes in a personal emergency-type situation.

phaus3• 13 years ago

The title did seem negative, and I was surprised to find that someone actually had a positive experience with T-Mobile.

I was a T-Mobile customer off and on for about 7 years total. For the last contract I had signed with them, I made sure that I would be able to get out of my contract if I A: moved due to a military PCS, or B: Moved due to getting out of the military. The T-Mobile rep at the store assured me that I would be able to get out of my contract under those circumstances, and so I signed up with them when I arrived at my last duty station.

When I left the military, and moved shortly after, I contacted a very helpful T-Mobile rep that told me everything was in order and that all I had to do was send him a copy of my discharge paperwork (which are still considered to be valid active duty military orders) and the early termination fees would be waived. After he cancelled my account, I received a ~$700 bill and a letter that said my paperwork had been declined.

I called and talked to a support rep, who in turn forwarded me to a manager that had no more authority than the representative. T-Mobile purposely creates powerless management positions in order to delude customers into thinking that there is nothing supervisors can do to handle customer service issues. Ultimately, they decided to continue to charge me the ETFs because they were already having a really bad year for customer retention.

The really ridiculous part of this mess is that I was perfectly happy with T-Mobile, yet I was forced to move to a state that doesn't have a single T-Mobile tower because I didn't have any luck finding employment elsewhere. I would have returned to T-Mobile as soon as possible, but my experience with their customer service has opened my eyes to what a shitty company it is.

chimeracoder• 13 years ago

The title did seem negative, and I was surprised to find that someone actually had a positive experience with T-Mobile.

When was this?

I was a long-time T-Mobile customer until a few years ago, and I always had excellent customer service experiences with them.

The only reason I switched was because I moved to NYC, and they had terrible reception here at the time - I couldn't place calls in my own bedroom.

Even then, though, we were able to break our entire family contract (which I believe we had only just re-signed a couple of months before) without paying an ETF[0].

[0] This is despite the fact that (a) I was the only one in the family plan who was in NYC, and (b) my zip code was in their coverage map (which means that they had no legal obligation to let me off the contract).

I've been considering going back to T-mobile; if their customer service really has gone downhill in the last few years, maybe I'll think about AT&T instead....

lancewiggs2• 13 years ago

Did you read the contract? Few do, but the contract you sign is the only evidence that you have of the deal. A person in a store or at the end of the phone can't change the contract, so buyer beware.

VLM• 13 years ago

This is the flip side of the puff piece story.

Read the last line of the bizjournal story "Michael handles our Web coverage, social media accounts and videos."

If after getting out of .mil you got a job handling web coverage, social media, and video, then having better PR reach than their own people, the CEO might care. Otherwise, let you rot.

doubledub• 13 years ago

The title surprised me too since I also emailed the CEO (years ago) and received an immediate resolution.

rickyc091• 13 years ago

I had the same thought with the title. I've actually had a pretty bad experience T-Mobile's customer service and I felt like an asshole about it. I ordered two prepaid t-mobile sim cards for $2.16, but I was unable to receive it so it got sent back to the sender. I left it alone for several months thinking once it got returned they would promptly send me a refund like Amazon. Nope, that didn't happen. After a month, I emailed them about it, no response. Another month passed by, I called them up and after three transfers I was directed to a guy who said he would process my refund and I should see it on my credit card in the next few days. This guy was a bit irritated that I was calling in regards for $2.16, then again I don't blame him, I felt like an asshole calling about it.

In all honestly, I wasn't trying to be cheap, I was just trying to get to the bottom of why it should take me several months to finally get a refund... this was two bucks, but what if had been two hundred and sixteen instead? Well, long story short. I never saw the refund, so I ended up filing a complaint with my credit card and sure enough, less than a day later, I received several automated emails saying a refund of $0.00 was processed, primarily cause I had already received the money from my credit card company.

rjzzleep• 13 years ago

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.

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.

Indeed just wow. I wish people would complain more, when there is a need.

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.

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.

harshreality3• 13 years ago

This reporter wasn't entitled to get out of his contract early. Either he was too lazy or stupid to know when his contract was ending (a dangerous thing for a journalist writing articles to inform the masses), or he knowingly pressured T-Mobile into letting him switch to a contract-free plan early. He thought he was special (he had the power to write a misleading, negative article about T-Mobile if they didn't cave, or a positive one if they did). If that's not an improper sense of entitlement, I don't know what is.

ZoFreX• 13 years ago

Did you read the article? He admits that he was mistaken, obligated to pay the amount, and was willing to do so.

jeza• 13 years ago

Everyone's entitled to get out of their contract if the other party agrees to terminate it. Regardless of whether they knew he was a reporter or not, I wonder if they figured they'd already made a buck from this customer (he only had six months left or $200 to pay out) and perhaps they just have more to gain by keeping him happy by releasing him from his contract. Therefore increasing the chances that the customer will stay with them in the long run and perhaps even tell his friends about it.

barking• 13 years ago

That's it.

You get psycopaths on either side of a business relationship.

And because most people just want a quiet life they get away with it too often.

Asterick6• 13 years ago

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.

Instead of "getting frustrated" and taking the issue to the CEO, you could have spent some time and effort to resolve it yourself.

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.

001sky• 13 years ago

Reporter: For $200, I will write a nice article about you.

CEO: Deal

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

That is really what this whole thing is about. Nothing more, nothing less.

mturmon• 13 years ago

Yes.

Now, how does that model of customer service apply to the rest of T-Mobile's customers? Not very well.

m_ram• 13 years ago

I'm not sure if this is true. The picture accompanying the article shows the reporter using what looks like his personal email address [1]. I guess he could have signed it with his company and job title information. Either way, I don't think one anecdote is enough to change my view that all wireless companies are horrible.

[1] http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/blog/2013/03/t-mobil...

stonewhite• 13 years ago

Viral marketing is The leading market these days

derefr2• 13 years ago

"But how is that so? I have had a full upgrade since November."

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 feel like you're almost out.

skittles• 13 years ago

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.

JoshTriplett• 13 years ago

If you're willing to use a T-Mobile branded phone rather than your own phone, T-Mobile has wifi calling available.

Alternatively, if you can get any signal at all, anywhere in your house, you can get a signal booster; you can either buy one yourself from Cel-Fi, or T-Mobile will give you one with a two-year contract.

lucb1e• 13 years ago

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.

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.

harshreality3• 13 years ago

They didn't start charging more. Telecom companies pull some shady tricks with plans and billing, but increasing the monthly fee without notice part way through your contract is not one of them.

He signed a contract for some period of time, and it wasn't up yet. After it was up, he would have had the option of one of the new plans, or switching providers, just like everyone else does.

smartwater• 13 years ago

With mobile providers in the US, if you don't use your "upgrade" you can keep using the service with no contract. If you accept their upgrade, an offer of getting a new phone at discount, you lock yourself in for another year.

mangotree• 13 years ago

Well, it shows they'd are about one customer. They haven't cancelled this clause for everyone, and would probably lose money if they did.

Keyframe• 13 years ago

Article/blog post (whatever it is) reads like a PR article, which it probably is.

tempestn2• 13 years ago

If he didn't have one already, Legere is certainly going to need an assistant to triage his personal email now.

kordless2• 13 years ago

He's the CEO of TMobile. I guarantee he has an EA working that already.

tempestn2• 13 years ago

Indeed. In which case giving out his own email address is just a convenient way of filtering out a a certain type of customer service request, while also being good PR.

He'd want a way to get important emails quickly without the EA having to manually screen them; I wonder if he uses a separate address, a whitelist, a tag (ie johnlegere+internal@tmobile.com), or a keyword in the subject. Guessing whitelist.

kordless2• 13 years ago

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.

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.

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!

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.

Gonzih• 13 years ago

Very very misleading title.

dsr_• 13 years ago

It's terrible customer service.

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.

Every customer support supervisor ought to be able to make an exception based on reasonable circumstances.

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."

Anything less at best means a flood of emails in the CEO inbox, and at worst continued customer dissatisfaction.

lancewiggs2• 13 years ago

The CEO is modelling behaviour for everyone else at the company. He should not have to do this for every customer as by now the word should be spreading internally that if the CEO can do it, then so can you/

ruswick2• 13 years ago

if the CEO can do it, then so can you

That's not how it works. I doubt that the customer service reps have the ability to arbitrarily dole out perks with no justification other than that they felt like it.

jamesmcbennett2• 13 years ago

Desire Paths 101. See Tom Hulme talk. http://mcbennett.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/tom-hulme-john-mae...

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.

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.

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.

mcherm2• 13 years ago

the question remains whether he should pave it.

Actually, that question has been answered. T-mobile has started offering no-contract plans, a complete change from the rest of the US industry. The only thing done here was to let a customer move to the new system sooner than they otherwise would.

jamesmcbennett2• 13 years ago

great! Thx for update. (I don't live in the US, so don't know much about the industry there.)

joeblau• 13 years ago

Dang it. I got hooked by the link bait! I'll be the CEO of T-Mobile is going to get a ton of e-mails now.

jfoster• 13 years ago

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.

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.

paul9290• 13 years ago

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.

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.

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 :(

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!

shmerl• 13 years ago

T-Mobile is probably the best mobile provider in US.

personlurking• 13 years ago

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).

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.

wpietri• 13 years ago

I've got a theory that this can all be explained by cost of communication.

For a long time, word of mouth was what determined what people thought of businesses. Plus, high cost of communication kept most businesses small.

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.

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.

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.

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.

geophile• 13 years ago

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.)

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.

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.

ruswick2• 13 years ago

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.

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.

TheMagicHorsey• 13 years ago

Oh, what a huge surprise. A CEO of a major corporation making sure that a journalist is taken care of.

Talk to any tech journalist. They all get special treatment now and again.

jennita• 13 years ago

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. :)

hknozcan• 13 years ago

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.

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.

galaktor• 13 years ago

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.

jordanbaucke• 13 years ago

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 http://onemanmilitia.blogspot.com/2013/09/to-get-out-of-my-c...

I agree with the comments I've seen here - their customer service is helpless, and I explained so in my letter.

I emailed the CEO of T-Mobile and he killed my contract

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