TDS Telecom has been trying desperately to get in to the Nashville market. They are directly and aggressively competing with Comcast (whose customer service practices come from depths of Hell) and AT&T (who still think a land line is required for anything).
My mother has TDS service and is quite pleased with it. Fiber Optic straight to her new house. It’s pretty neat and uber-geeky. We’re hopefully moving soon and I was planning on giving them a chance.
Was.
After several months of throwing their mailers in the trash after briefly looking at them, I got this:
WTF? Why am I getting something from the BILLING office for TDS? I’ve never had service with them, ever. It’s addressed to me, so it’s not a delivery problem. Did someone steal my identity? WHAT IS THIS!?!?
Oh. It’s more promotional material.
Screw you guys.
Advertisements don’t come from the billing department. Bills come from the billing department, and not addressing bills you didn’t sign up for can have serious consequences. Which, I guess, was the point.
If you’re going to LIE to me when you’re trying to win my business, how badly are you going to treat me once you’ve already acquired me?
I use TDS fiber and the treat me great. This sort of advertising is ridiculous though.
I’ve reviewed your post and I want to apologize on behalf of TDS for causing you to be angry with us. It is not our intent to be misleading. I will talk with our Marketing team to review your post and share your concerns. I understand your point. As you noted we are trying to compete aggressively with the companies you mentioned this direct mail is a result of trying to get customers to open materials in a highly cluttered marketing environment. However, we’ll evaluate if we’ve perhaps gone to far with this particular mailing.
I hope you will reconsider TDS. As a long time employee I can tell you we are an up-standing local service provider.
Wow, wizardpc, talk about getting some attention to your gripe. That’s some of the best customer service I’ve ever seen, and you’re not even a customer, “billing” notices notwithstanding.
Ms. Boegli, if you follow up and return here, a comment: I can do your “evaluation” of this marketing idea for you: this is really, really terrible. This stinks.
Perhaps you can explain to your marketing folks that the consumer would like to hear one very simple thing: why would I want to choose your service over the competition? Give me a reason or two. And here’s another clue you can give them: a lower price is a good start. Even if the price is the same or close to the competition, tell me what part of your service is better. That’s all. They don’t need to trick people into opening mail with obfuscation. In fact, they can save your company a lot of money by just mailing out the facts on a large postcard. No envelopes, no silliness, no tricks. Lay it out there. Tell people why you’re better. You might be surprised at the results.
Disclaimer: I don’t live in your service area. This is just my two cents.
WizardPC – It’s DeAnne at TDS again. I was able to follow up with our marketing team and found out something quite interesting. We made a mistake. In fact, a few of our last mailings used the wrong template. It was supposed to say “TDS Main Office” – we did make an error and sincerly apologize. Our Marketing team is double checking to make sure this error has been fully corrected.
And Mr. Dougherty – I shared your comments with the Marketing team too. Thank you for the advice and your insightful two cents. 🙂
So when should I stop getting these?
sounds good to me. when are you going to be available in Eugen OR? I want to dump Comcast *so badly*