Early last week, Bell filed an application [zip, 51KB] to change the process for Canadians to switch their phone company. While the application claims that their proposal will enhance competition and benefit customers, these results are less than obvious to me.
The way things work currently, customers agree to an offer from a service provider and give the new company the authority to act on their behalf to notify the old company. It is a process that has worked for the past 15 years.
Bell believes that the strength of competitive forces and the prevalence of services bundling have rendered the current processes to be unwarranted. It went so far as to suggest that the process is at odds with the Policy Direction requirement to minimize regulatory intervention.
Bell wants users to have to contact their current phone company themselves to cancel their service.
As I understand it, Bell wants you to:
- agree to a new deal with your new service provider, then
- try to get through to your current company to cancel your old service, listening to offers to “please stay, we’re sorry we mistreated you and made you feel like we overcharged you” and,
- somehow coordinate so that your new company and old company make the transition happen somewhat seamlessly.
Of course, the fact that the old company will do their best to convince you to stay, is why Bell says this enhances competition to the benefit of customers.
The Companies submit that from the end-user’s perspective, winback activities can only serve to enhance consumer welfare. Furthermore, the current transfer process is detrimental to end-users by denying them important information regarding their existing contract obligations with their current TSP.
Of course, under Bell’s proposal, the old phone company won’t let you leave if there is an outstanding billing dispute, whether from a contract, a bundle or just plain errors. I’m not sure how this proposal enhances consumer welfare. I think that the ability for consumers to walk away is an important leveling of the balance of power in consumers dealing with big companies.
While Bell’s application deals with long distance and local services, it would likely be extended to wireless number portability processes, presenting a risk to wireless substitution from the new competitors.
Coincident with the Bell application, a US Court recently upheld FCC restrictions on Verizon win-back campaigns that relied on customer contact lists generated by the submission of transfer requests from competitor cable companies. Verizon had argued that the FCC violated its First Amendment rights of free speech, to which the Court ruled:
the executing carrier is disabled only from using an opportunity fortuitously placed in its hands by a technological necessity — the fact that its technical cooperation is essential to the implementation of the submitting carrier’s competitive victory.
Many of the arguments put forward by Verizon sound similar to those in the Bell application.
Bell can’t even manage it’s own services, let alone manage an interaction with another company.
I’m locked into Bell for cell service for the foreseeable future, but I’d revert using Indian smoke signals before getting a landline with them.
This just sounds like ‘sour grapes’ on Bell’s behalf. They have treated their costumers badly for ever and now they are reaping the penalty. I’ve been away from Bell for one year and they contact me at least once a month, begging me to come back! Not in a million years!
Bell is obviously concerned about loosing customers and this blatant attempt at improving its customer retention success rate won’t fool anyone. This clearly harms competition by placing unnecessary obstacles in the face of consumers, who want better or cheaper service. It gives an unfair advantage to the incumbent with the most customers at risk, which is Bell, by forcing the customer to submit to an attempted win-back conversation and inevitable threats of cancelation fees, without the obligation to have any conversation with the competing company. It also forces the competing company in the case of VoIP providers to expose proprietary information about their network’s underlying PSTN carriers. In fact, I suspect VoIP providers is the real target Bell is going after here because in order for a customer to be able to request that his phone is transferred to another carrier, the VoIP provider may be forced to divulge who that carrier is. Many VoIP providers are not LECs and rely on CLEC and ILEC network for PSTN connectivity.
We had a bundled package with Bell and it seems every few months the price was creeping up a dollar here, a couple of dollars there. When I went with another internet and home phone provider that was saving me over $50.00 a month, Bell is NOW calling me to offer better deals that match my new costs. Why couldn’t they have done that when I was with them as a customer instead of raising the prices all the time.
The problem is that they say this nut if you call them like I did and ask for a better deal they tell you that you currently have there best deal and all they can do is offer you a 5$ discount for 6 months and then your price goes up again.
Who does Bell think that they are that a customer should be FORCED to contact Bell themselves. If Bell doesn’t want to loose customers then they should be competative before the customer decides to leave. You can’t tell me that Bell isn’t aware of what the other companies are doing. Roger’s does the same thing. While they have you as their customer they do nothing to keep you as their customer. They will offer a service at a cheeper rate to win someone to become a customer (or to win you back as a customer) while you are paying a higher rate for the same service from them and they will raise these rates as long as you remain a customer with them. If they want to keep you as a customer they should automatically lower your rates if the same service is offered to someone else cheeper. They should also make you aware when they improve a service with an option to switch to the improved service. This is called rewarding customer loyalty, and may help to keep their customers happy. The other is called greed.
Here this from a “phone” company, who by the very nature of their business should respond much quicker than any other industry. First they put you on hold forever, then they think your outdated touch-tone phone is a powerful computer as they try to cram as many options imaginable within the confines of a basic keypad. Rogers, Bell all the same. If I dial into my voicemail message box, I have to listen to some slow mouthed lady in frencn and english wasting my time telling me who i have reached–my voicemail-and then blah, blah, blah more nonesense, then press 1 for this, etc, then when i press 1 they say if you were born between 1920 and 1921 press 1 again if you…well you get the picture. I exaggerate the idea but the concept is all there. After 45 minutes you may reach someone. But the kicker is at the beginning they tell you “this call may be monitored for quality control” or something like that, heck the last thing i would want to do is record evidence of their lousy service, if you asked me. If I was bell i would state “this call IS NOT monitored or recorded” so no one will know our lousy service.
I can’t help but laugh at Bell for trying this! Before I left, I tried 3 times via internet and phone to try to talk to them about my services and the fact that I was going to cancel. They wanted nothing to do with me until the day I phoned in the cancelation. After I cancelled they were full of short term promises. Too little too late.
There is one significant upside to Bell’s proposal. The increase in the amount of telemarketer fraud – especially in the long-distance market – has led to many Canadians agreeing to switch providers without even knowing what they were agreeing to. It happens most often with seniors or people new to Canada who have troubles with English. Bell’s proposal would provide a safety net by ensuring that people who “agree” to switch really know what they’re getting themselves into. Sometimes extra hassle is a good thing. Does anyone mind the extra 2 seconds to put their seatbelt on before driving?