As most of you know, we spent 8 days without power after a recent icestorm.
When my electricity was restored, I tried connecting to the internet. I have 2 ISP’s, just in case of some type of prolonged downtime or outage.
My main ISP was down, also because of no electricity and downed lines.
My backup was fine, so I used them for 2-3 days before I tried my main ISP again and found that they had come back online.
Here’s my question:
If you were that main ISP and you knew you were down for 7, 8 or 10 days and so were your customers, would you pro-rate all of your customers bills to reflect those days of no service or would you wait and try to satisfy just those who complained?
I have no idea as to what they’re going to do, but I’d like to have some advice waiting for them when I see my next bill. So feel free to use the comments below to tell me what you’d do and why.
Thanks, in advance, for the advice?
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
In general people will be happy to get back to their normal lives. Not many will want to start the hazzle with small compensations from various service providers. I would wait for people to complain and then handle complaints.
I wouldn’t leave this opportunity to get marketing unused though. I would include a pampflet to go with next bill and say that “together we experienced this terrible thing, we have donated this and this much for that organization to help people, enclosed is information so that you can donate too if you want to help”… something like that.
Nice way to look at it Jake.
Thanks for stopping by and adding your thoughts.
I’ve had many, many days of downtime with this same ISP and with this added 7-10 days, I’m sure they could easily give me credit for a month’s usage and not be hurt.
Granted, it’s only $87, but why should they get to not provide service and still get paid.
I think it would be only if you hollered!
We also had an ice storm a few years ago – some areas had no power for 2 weeks.
Our ISP’s, like our Telco’s just say hey – ain’t my prob ….
I’m throwing my loose change in with your bet Elliot !
I don’t think most of the people in business know anything about business.
Thanks for stopping by and dropping off some thoughts
What should they do? Depends on what they want?
Do they want to take in as much money as possible as quickly as they can? Then ignore the outage. It wasn’t their fault and most customers will not complain.
Or, do they want to solidify their long term position and make those satisfied customers become rock-solid fans? Then prorate the next bill for the missed days and enjoy the anticipation of long term customer loyalty.
That’s a nice, simple solution, Beth. I like simple
Thanks for stopping by and dropping off some wisdom … we need all we can get around here !
Hi Mike,
Just stumbled into your site, I love reading your posts so I will come back again later.
I agree with Beth’s comment above. I think it is really not easy to retain customer these days so if I am your ISP, I would certainly offer you as the customer to reduce your bill this month. Of course I assume that the ISP would have an insurer to cover this kind of things.
Regards,
Christian
http://www.comfort-breeze.com
I agree with you, Christian, but yesterday I talked to them and they said it was an “Act of God” and they weren’t required to pro-rate our bills.
I’m afraid they, well….suck, is the word that comes to mind
Thanks for stopping by and come back soon.
Guess that answers our questions, doesn’t it Mike?
We aren’t “required” to do a lot of things, but we do them because they are the right things. Because they mean the difference between people using our business when they have to and using it whenever they can and telling their friends about us. We do them because going the extra mile means something to us.
Ugh…not only does your ISP suck, but they don’t care that they suck.
In fact, Beth, I think they revel in suckdom !
Lol.. suckdom, that’s a good word for it. Bunch them all in there.
In this case then, they have no one to blame but themselves if they lost a few customers. Generally there’s so many ISPs these days so … well, there are choices should you want to change ISP. Like Beth says, to do a right thing, rather than the required things. I’m sure karma will pay them back if they did the former.
Regards,
Christian
http://www.comfort-breeze.com
Hey Christian,
See my reply to Jake and thanks to you too for all the great additions to my posts !
Act of God. Wasn’t it also the reasoning in Donald Trump’s answer to his creditors on why he hasn’t paid his debt according the agreement.
I don’t really wonder this. If it would be a product with close competition, situation might be different, but I bet y0u don’t have any viable choices.
ISP’s often have monopoly like market position in some selected local markets. If competitor wants to offer service in same area they first have to rent usage right from this monopoly company. We all know what this does to price competition. Also which company would spend about 8% of their revenue to make customers extra happy, because they will not lose those customers anyway.
I would also focus to people who work in companies, would they be willing to work extra hours to give better service for customers in this kind of situations? Mostly service position people will hit the road as the clock strikes.
Great analogy, Jake.
My choices are limited to suckdom and worser suckdom, until AT&T decides to connect two areas that have DSL. I sit in the unserved middle, paying twice as much for half the bandwidth.
If anyone has any pull with AT&T, send ‘em my way !
Thanks for adding such great comments around here.
Er…we should be surprised?
These guys are in business! Wait until somebody complains.