When calling BellSouth to set up new telephone service, you might expect to speak with a customer service rep trained to identify your needs and match you up with the BellSouth service designed to serve them.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
It’s not the poor rep’s fault, either. BellSouth staffs its call center phones with commission-driven sales reps. The reps are given specific product quotas to meet — a predetermined number of home telephone service packages, cell phone contracts, and DirecTV sign-ups each rep is expected to push for on a given day. Worse, the reps are required to encourage you to purchase all these services and packages … whether they meet your needs or not. Their job isn’t to meet your needs … it’s to increase the company’s revenue, period.
Here’s an example: let’s say your ailing grandmother is moving into a nursing home. She doesn’t need or want a lot of fancy call services; she just wants a phone that will ring when you call.
The BellSouth “tech talk” term for this product is a “1FR” (but God help you if you specifically ask for that — see below!), and it costs about $20.00 per month. The call center sales rep, however, is required to do everything in his or her power to steer you away from (and even conceal the existence of!) this option.
The rep’s first pitch will likely be for new local service plus a bundle of BellSouth’s calling services — a package that will cost you about twice what the 1FR option would cost you per month. Worse, the rep is also required to ask whether your grandmother has a cell phone … and whether or not she’s considered switching to DirecTV.
Simply knowing that the 1FR option exists, however, may not be enough to guarantee your ability get it. Recently, when we called BellSouth’s new service line and specifically requested a 1FR … the call center reps just hung up on us! This happened not once, not twice, but three times before we were able to order the service.
Here’s why: of all the services sold by BellSouth, the 1FR option offers your friendly phone rep the least possible commission. Put yourself in the shoes of a commission-driven sales rep and answer the following question: if setting up a low-commission 1FR line takes about the same amount of time as setting up a high-commission, feature-packed line … how do you want to spend the next ten minutes of your life? Once we made it clear we knew exactly what we wanted, our low-dollar calls were “accidentally dropped.”
Potential clients paired with services that meet their needs become more than long-term customers … they become happy advocates for a company’s products and services. Unfortunately, BellSouth has chosen to value profit over customer satisfaction … at your expense.
It’s a bad call on the part of BellSouth management. While these kinds of tactics may boost short-term revenue, in the long term, as consumers explore other options (going exclusively to cell phones, for example, or switching to cable-based digital phones), this approach will undoubtedly be bad for business.
I ordered the 1fr service from Bellsouth, the new ATT, on 4/16/2007. I had no problem getting it on my first call. It costs me $9.95. However, I did upgrade to touch tone service, per my preference, and pay a total of $14.95 plus taxes and fees.
Sales person did try to get me to upgrade to Direct TV (I currently use Dish Network, which I am happy with) and tried to get me to subscribe to Fast Access DSL(I use Comcast Cable (basic TV 14.95 month plus $29 for High Speed Internet).
I use Gizmoproject.com/Sipphone via my cable internet VOIP router, costs me $3.00 a month for my number and 1 cent a minute outbound, for regular and long distance useage.
I only needed a non voip phone line for my newly implanted Cardiac defibulator and pace maker for tele-medical appointments.
Add it all up…VOIP phone, LandLine phone, Dish network and Basic Cable, still cheaper then the tv/phone/internet bundle from ATT/Bellsouth! and I have a redundant entertainment and communication household and 24/7 cardiac event monitoring.