Fryer's Blog in the Mountains

Old School vs New School: Battle for the Internet in America

Growing up I really enjoyed UHF channels on our family TV.    After school we could pick up stations hundreds of miles away and watch reruns of Batman before the parents came home.

Fast forward to today.   The UHF band is being auctioned off for wireless communications.   AT&T / SBC has been trying to build the old monopoly.   But things are different now that wireless easily sidesteps land lines.   What to do?   AT&T wants control.  And Google want competition.

Here is a clash of two world views.  Google views the Internet as a community where everyone is welcome.  A big town center.  AT&T views the Internet as a toll road.

At stake is the openness of access to the Internet.   And Google is willing to put their money where their mouth is.  AT&T wants to own the public airwaves and Google is making them very nervous.   I nominate Eric Schmidt as Batman and hope he can make the world safe for its Internet citizens.

Improve your bottom line, encourage employee turnover

You see if you have customer-facing employees who know how things work and are helpful, your customers may develop a personal relationship with them.  And that means trouble.   Because if that employee leaves you may lose customers.    But if you can pre-program cheap interchangeable employees, you never have to worry about paying a fair wage, improving benefits or training.  And if they leave after 6 months, that's great!  Not enough time to develop empathy with your customer.  Everything is script driven.

A tale of two Smiths grocery stores.   Scott's grocery store firmly believes in this philosophy.  I bet you he doesn't even remember anyone's name there.   While here we have have 5 grocery stores within a 10 minute radius.   We know everyone's name at our Smith's and they will do anything to help us and we do 80% of our shopping there.  But what happens if Krogers burns them?   The employees will leave and we will too.

So there you are, focus on that bottom line and never mind the fact that you cannot get new customers and have a high customer churn rate.  That's not your problem.  Is it?

No one cares about you

Sorry to be the one to tell you.  Unless you've got 60% market share, they really don't care.   What they do care about, is them.   So whenever you engage with the marketplace, make sure it's about them.  Their hopes, their aspirations, their problems.

And if you don't believe me, think back to the last time you were at a social gathering.  Did you ever run into a Penelope ?  Did you run away?  Will your customers?

After 12 years, it's goodbye

I've had the same plan, same number with ATT wireless - Cingular - ATT for 12 years.  They're turning off the network, and wanted to jack my bill by 500%.

I'm with Sprint now.  Tried to buy from website.  Didn't work.  Tried calling, and after 3 tries and 3 hours got the wrong plan and wrong phone.   So went to an independent Sprint / Nextel office.  Got it all done, switched over the number in 45 minutes.

Local touch is everything.  Always go to an independent.   Same price, less hassles, better service.