Why monopolies are bad for customers
I lost Internet access at my place up in Vermont. I called Adelphia and in a relatively painless fashion they dispatched a technician out today.
He was a nice enough guy, knowledgeable too, and clearly going the extra mile to help me out – except that his company had decided that Internet access technicians do not need laptops. So in order for him to diagnose the problem correctly, I had to loan him my brand new laptop for two hours. He took the thing outside, schlepped it up and down the stairs – you get the picture. Plus it made me nervous as I have sensitive information on there.
Of course, and in this country, cable companies are holding somewhat of a monopoly – so in a way that could explain why they make such customer-unfriendly decisions.
But is nobody thinking about the future?
As they are starting to roll out VoIP and other services, they will start running into competition. And then of course, even in their core offerings – cable and high speed Internet access – they will increasingly have competition.
But wait – the competition is coming from large telephone companies!
…never mind – they’ve got us cornered…
[Technorati Tags: monopolies customer service]
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Leave a Reply