Sometimes a company can be its own worst enemy. The likelihood of a positive outcome when your legal department interacts with your customers is slim to none. Witness AT&T’s response to (soon to be ex) customer Giorgio Galante who sent two emails to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson suggesting thethering functionality for the iPhone (which the new competitive Android already has). AT&T’s response to customer feedback was a phone call from their legal department with a threat of a cease and desist legal action should Giorgio have the temerity to email AT&T CEO Stephenson again.
Here’s the voicemail left by Brent from AT&T’s Legal We-hate-our-customers Department.
Naturally, after Giorgio posted this, it spread like wildfire across the web, garnering ink in Endgadget, Forbes, Slashdot and even a CNN interview request (Giorgio took the highroad and declined). Within 24 hours the AT&T’s PR department was hard at work trying to undo to damage caused by the legal suits across the hall:
We are apologizing to our customer. We’re working with him today to address his questions and concerns. This is not the way we want to treat customers. From Facebook to significant customer service channels, AT&T strives to provide our customers with easy ways to have their questions addressed. Because of this incident, we are reviewing our entire process to ensure a situation like this does not happen again.
Too little too late (and too much corporate speak). “This is not the way we want to treat our customers.” (Well except for our CEO, but everyone else who works for AT&T is really nice.) The appropriate responce to a PR disaster is not a carefully crafted script from a PR department. Instead AT&T should consider a massive overreaction that turns this negative into a positive press opportunity. The options are endless . . . give away iPhones, donate coveted iPads to Giorgio’s kids’ school, offer free lifetime wireless service. Or perhaps just a phone call apology from Stephenson.
Now think about what Verizon could do with that voicemail . . .
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