Try to Email AT&T’s CEO? Expect a Cease and Desist Threat (Update)
AT&T customer Giorgio Galante was dissatisfied with the new data plan AT&T announced yesterday, which eliminated unlimited data. So he decided to try to get in touch with AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson, whose email address is not public, but is easily findable online if you Google, say, ‘at&t randall stephenson email address.’
Galante got a response from AT&T alright, but it was probably not what he was expecting: After thanking him for his feedback, a member of AT&T’s “executive response team” phoned him and left a voice mail that thanked him for his feedback, but followed up by saying “”going forward, I need to warn you that if you continue to send emails to Randall Stephenson, a cease-and-desist letter may be sent to you.”
What sort of email did Galante send to provoke this response?
Assuming he didn’t water it down when he passed it along, not a particularly offensive one at all:
Thanks for making the switch to a Sprint HTC Evo an even easier decision. I don’t think even Steve Jobs can spin 2GB for $25/month as a good thing for the consumer. I may not use 2GB/month today, but the point of these devices (iPad 3g, iPhone 4G, etc.) is that we’ll be able to do more and your network either can’t handle it, or you’re just trying to squeeze more money out of your customers. The $15/month 200MB plan is just a crappy anchor price that makes the $25 plan look like a better deal than it really is, given that the $30/”unlimited” plan goes away.
Please don’t have one of your $12/hour “Executive Relations” college students call me – I’ve found them to be generally poorly informed (Engadget.com readers know more than they do about AT&T) and they have little authority to do anything sensible.
This is simply a soon-to-be former customer feedback.
Regards,
Giorgio G.
There’s some dollop of sarcasm and dissatisfaction to it, but it’s certainly nothing threatening or crazy: For the most part, it expresses a frustration and sense of betrayal that many AT&T customers felt when the changes were announced yesterday.
We’re curious as to how AT&T will respond to this. Given some of the outraged comments and calls to action we’ve been seeing on messageboards in the wake of this, they may need to start by getting Randall Stephenson a new email address.
Update: A rep for AT&T sent us the following comment this afternoon:
We are apologizing to our customer. We’re working with him today to address his questions and concerns. This is not the way we want to treat customers. From Facebook to significant customer service channels, AT&T strives to provide our customers with easy ways to have their questions addressed.
You can listen to AT&T’s voicemail here.
(So long, and thanks for all the fish via Engadget)
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