Randall L. Stephenson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AT&T, has made AT&T's customer service even more hilarious than three years ago when I last wrote about his great comedians.
I've been an AT&T business customer for over 13 years, since starting up an independent consulting firm. On May 31, I cancelled a cellular service that I hadn't used in over a year. I checked with Cingular who assured me that cancelling with them was all there was to it, and I would no longer see its charge on my AT&T bill. But the joke was on me.
I not only saw the Cingular charge on the next bill--which I assume will disappear next month--but my phone bill went up an additional $115. (Okay, I was having a little fun. It only went up $114.90.) So even if the cellular charge is not billed next month, then my overall phone bill--for less service now that I got rid of the cell phone--will go up around $78 per month above what I previously paid. Hilarious!
Even more hilarious, I asked about this before I cancelled the cell phone, just to make sure. In other words, even though I was told my overall bill would go down after cancelling the cell phone service, my bill is going way up per month, with no warning. In fact, I got a reassurance instead of a warning.
Today I called AT&T's customer service and asked why my bill was $115 higher (and would probably be $78 higher in coming months), and I wasn't warned about any of this. Obviously, I would never have cancelled the cell service if I had been warned--after inquiring, no less--that this might happen.
According to AT&T, it had no record of my previous April 2016 phone call wherein I renewed my regular business plan (before cancelling the cellular service). Moreover, AT&T insists that in order to get a lower rate, I must now buy an additional service, such as a web site, or another bundled service, then they will give me a lower rate for my phone service. In other words, I should have just kept the old (now unavailable) cellular service.
Perhaps AT&T simply loves keeping me happy, so this is its way of giving me hours of customer service entertainment.
I am told next step is a call from retention services to see what they can do, because no problem can ever be solved by talking to just one person in customer service. AT&T loves its comedy team!
AT&T does not provide customers with the products they want and need without a lot of jokes and tricks to keep customers "happy." Rather, AT&T forces products on you that it wants to sell in the configuration it wants to provide. Otherwise, without warning, customers will be slammed with high fees, and then you have to renegotiate all over again on AT&T's comedic terms.
Randall L. Stephenson: The Great Motivator
My colleagues and I who use AT&T have a running joke. We prefer landlines for conducting business for the better reception, but AT&T wants you to use their digital UVerse or cell phones, so it will hit you with byzantine bundles and rate schedules and force unwanted products and services on you--or surprise you with unexpected charges--because AT&T is truly committed to your happiness.