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AT&T Wireless suffocates innovation

I was reminded directly and personally this past week of the single most suffocating business phrase that stifles innovation and destroys your customer experience:

“It’s our policy.”

The culprit was AT&T Wireless, until this week the sole provider of iPhone wireless service. The issue: I wanted my college attending son to become responsible for his own phone bill and remove his line from my family wireless plan.

From a customer perspective, this should be a relatively quick and easy transaction. We were both in the store, so permission wasn’t an issue, there was no new equipment involved and we were keeping the same phone number. All we wanted was to change the billing name and address from mine to his.

AT&T’s response: that will be $500.

That’s right. AT&T wanted a $500 deposit, to be held for one year, to change the billing responsibility to my 19 year old son.

Putting that into perspective, his monthly plan was $39.95, so AT&T wanted him to essentially prepay an entire year for the privilege of remaining with AT&T.

Why? It’s their policy.

Since most 19 year olds have not yet established credit, AT&T is concerned that they will sign up for an account, get a new phone then disappear without paying their bill. AT&T would then be out the cost of a new phone (very expensive if it’s an iPhone) and whatever minutes they racked up. I understand their dilemma.

What I don’t understand is their adherence to a strict policy despite circumstances that clearly demonstrate its ridiculousness.

These include:

1. they were dealing with a long-term client whose total billings exceed $15,000. I’m pretty certain that I fit the profile of their ideal client: many devices, heavy data usage, big monthly bill.
2. there was no equipment involved. My son owns his phone, so there was no risk of AT&T losing hundreds of dollars in equipment.
3. the amount they were requesting exceeded his anticipated annual bill.

But, “it’s our policy” prevented them from considering reasonable options that would have protected their interests while addressing a highly valued customer’s concerns.

Had they been innovative and truly concerned with their client’s experience they could have:

1. enabled me to bear co-responsibility for my son’s bill (I volunteered, and they refused)
2. reduced the deposit amount to a reasonable fee of $100-150 (I requested this and they refused)
3. put a cap on the monthly usage so that his bill could never exceed $100 without payment or his service would be shut off (they certainly have this capacity, but refused)

OR… they could have examined my lengthy history with their company, taken into consideration my desire to establish my son as a direct client with their service, considered their near absence of risk and done the right thing: transfer the number, welcome my son as a new valued client and congratulate me for having a responsible son striking out on his own and taking care of his personal obligations. How many businesses wouldn’t welcome a client’s effort to introduce their son or daughter as a potential long-term client? AT&T could have elevated an ordinary transaction into a memorable rite of passage.

Instead, their adherence to “policy” destroyed my limited goodwill towards AT&T, will compel my son to switch carriers in a few months when his contract expires and will propel me to examine Verizon as an alternate service provider when my contract expires later this year.

The cost of their insistence that nothing can shake them from “our policy”? In addition to my personal enmity and determination to inform as many people as possible to their miserly and miserable customer service, when I shift my service to another provider, they will lose thousands of dollars a year on voice and data from six different devices.

Because it’s my policy to cease doing business with inflexible, short-sighted and uncaring companies.