The Customer Is Always Right Until It Cost Too Much Money
It has finally happened ladies and gentlemen. Customer service has hit a new all-time low, and it was in the works for quite some time. The saying, "The Customer Is Always Right" has been traded in for a new slogan. The new saying will go "The customer is always right until it cost too much money". AT&T is the leader of this new way of thinking with their policies regarding their unlimited data plans. These plans were all the rage a few years ago when Apple gave AT&T the exclusive rights to their titan of smart phone technologies the iPhone. AT&T knew that to lure customers into contracts with these phones they would need to provide some kind of unlimited data usage plan as people would hesitate to buy such a phone for fear of the expense. Now these cell phone plans have been done away with because they turned out to be too costly to AT&T, and if that isn't enough of an insult AT&T has decided to target the remaining customers they have under contract with these plans. Apparently there is a loop hole in the contract that states AT&T only guarantees unlimited data usage of these plans, but if a customer is deemed to be over using their unlimited data plans AT&T can restrict the high speed access. This means that if a customer makes one too many downloads in a billing period they can punish that customer by slowing down their cell phone service which basically renders a smart phone useless.
This may not be a breach of contract on AT&T's part, but it most certainly is a deceptive business tactic. Customers signed contracts for these unlimited data plans, because the expense of a smart phone can run quite high. Now, that AT&T effectively has all these customers under their thumb they decided it's time to change the rules and not hold up their end of the deal. When customers complained of this policy the customer service representatives responded by saying if you are unhappy with the unlimited plan you can switch to a limited usage plan which will guarantee you the high speed access.
In a day and age where everyone is feeling the pinch of economic hardship, it is appalling that cellular companies have the audacity to strong arm people into paying more money for cell phone service. The natural response to AT&T's new policy should be too switch cell phone carriers, but due to the exclusiveness of the iPhone to AT&T, a new technology which should benefit all cell phone users, cannot be enjoyed. This marks a new age of poor customer service. Apparently customer satisfaction doesn't mean anything to big business; it is now all about the money. If we as consumers do not start exercising our buying power to its full affect companies such as AT&T will grow more and more arrogant till people are once again paying thousand dollar cell phone bills.
