Bad marketing makes ATT an easy target
Has anyone seen the Vonage commercial where the ATT guy talks about all their years of being in business? The Vonage woman comes on and challenges him to explain the value of his pricing. Well, you have to admit, the Vonage gal was right.
I used to be with ATT for both Phone and DSL. I started out with decent plans where the total cost of services were about $75.00, then this past year, it crept up to $125.00, the largest increase coming from the DSL service increase. The phone service was in my opinion pretty expensive. All I wanted was unlimited calling in the US, which is what I think most consumers want. After all, we are a transient society and everyone has friends and family around the country.
Now that I have left them, they are marketing to me again. I received this brochure in the mail. I can't believe it. It is everything the Vonage gal says and more. The pricing options are so confusing that the average Joe can not make heads and tails over it. They really do have so many pricing options that they are incomprehensible. I would say there are at least 5 pricing options for phone. There are so many pricing options that they need a full color 10 page brochure for it. All I could think of was the advertising agency they hired to design and the printing company to print it. The cheap thing should have been my address out of their own database.
Now, as a consumer and a business person myself, why would I purchase services from such an inefficient company. My thoughts are this:
1.So many pricing models means you need the infrastructure to support it. An expensive IT and accounting system needed to keep track of all the pricing models.
2.Full color brochures cost a lot of money.
3.Their websites suck – too confusing.
So, it begs the question, what do consumers really need? Really, they only need one pricing model for phone service. ATT marketing department either has a secret formula that says we can bamboozle people to buy our inefficient services and make money, or they have no idea what they are doing. In a world where people are so busy and need simplicity, VOIP service providers are offering the right solutions for busy people. One price, all the services, and a phone that rings. What more could you ask for?
ATT...quit marketing to me. The money you spend on marketing could be used to lower your cost of delivery, so people can have what they want - unlimited phone calls, decent Internet connection, at a price that makes sense for the consumer.
