#customerretention — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #customerretention, aggregated by home.social.
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How Do You Build Brand Trust When Nobody Knows Your Business?
Every successful business started with the same challenge.Nobody knew it existed.Before customers, before sales, and before recognition, every company had to earn trust from people who had never heard its name before.This is one of the biggest obstacles facing new entrepreneurs.Why would someone choose a business with no reputation when established competitors already exist?The answer is that trust is not built overnight.It is built through many small actions that demonstrate reliability, […] -
Why Are Communities Becoming More Valuable Than Audiences?
For many years, building an audience was considered one of the most important goals in business.The logic was simple.More followers meant more visibility.More visibility meant more opportunities.More opportunities meant more growth.This approach helped countless creators, entrepreneurs, and businesses build successful brands online.Today, however, another trend is emerging.Communities are becoming increasingly valuable.Many business owners are discovering that a smaller, highly engaged […] -
Why Are Email Lists More Valuable Than Social Media Followers?
Social media has become one of the most powerful communication tools in history.Businesses can reach thousands of people instantly. Creators can build audiences from anywhere in the world. Entrepreneurs can share ideas, products, and services with potential customers at an unprecedented scale.As a result, many people focus heavily on follower counts.More followers often appear to mean more opportunities.Yet some of the most successful marketers, creators, and business owners place greater […] -
What Is the Best Free Marketing Strategy for a New Business?
One of the first challenges every entrepreneur faces is marketing.A business can have an excellent product, a useful service, and a clear vision, but without attention, growth becomes difficult. Customers cannot buy from businesses they do not know exist.This is why marketing is so important.Unfortunately, many new business owners believe marketing requires large budgets. They assume success depends on expensive advertising campaigns, professional agencies, or significant financial […] -
How Can Small Businesses Compete With Bigger Brands?
One of the biggest concerns many entrepreneurs have is competition.Large companies often have bigger budgets, larger teams, stronger brand recognition, and access to resources that smaller businesses simply cannot match. Looking at these advantages, it is easy to assume that small businesses are at a disadvantage.However, history shows that small businesses can compete very effectively against larger brands.In some cases, they can even outperform them.The reason is that size is not always the […] -
Why Is Content Marketing Still the Best Marketing Strategy in 2026?
Marketing has changed dramatically over the past decade.Advertising platforms have become more competitive. Customer acquisition costs have increased. Social media algorithms continue to evolve. Artificial intelligence is changing how information is discovered and consumed.Despite all these changes, one strategy continues to deliver results across industries.Content marketing.Many business owners are constantly searching for the next marketing breakthrough. They want faster growth, lower […] -
How Do You Get Your First 100 Customers?
One of the most important milestones for any new business is getting its first customers.The first customer proves that someone is willing to exchange money for the value being offered. The tenth customer begins to validate the idea. The hundredth customer often signals that a business is gaining real traction.Yet for many entrepreneurs, getting those first one hundred customers feels like the hardest part of the journey.The challenge is understandable.Established businesses already have […]https://kierendaystudiosofficial.wordpress.com/2026/06/20/how-do-you-get-your-first-100-customers/
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This phone call could have been a form on a site
My research for the latest update to Wirecutter’s guide to WiFi hotspots technically concluded in December, but this week treated me to an annoying but useful sequel to that work: canceling service on the AT&T hotspot I’d bought (with later reimbursement) after my editors and I got tired of trying to pry a loaner hotspot out of the PR departments of that carrier or the hotspot vendor Franklin Wireless.
I should have known that AT&T’s site wouldn’t let me end service on the hotspot. I should have known that calling to accomplish this task would take longer than I’d predict or like. I should have known it would take more than one call. And yet…
I gave myself a few days to recover from CES to try to get this over with, then called 800-331-0500 (saved you a search!), entered my account number and PIN as asked by the IVR system, and was greeted with a suggestion that I request a callback instead of staying on hold.
Fine, I thought, even if that meant I’d have to pay attention to the next incoming call instead of letting it go to voicemail. The call back came at about the predicted time, I told the rep my name and account number, she said she was going to verify my account–as in, the thing that AT&T’s site does when I log into my account–and then silence ensued. After 10 minutes, I gave up and decided to try again later that evening.
My second call led to the same automated gatekeeping–say my account number, enter my PIN, etc. (FYI: If you don’t remember your PIN, AT&T will text a temporary one to you, which is not such a great experience when the wireless device in question is a hotspot that may require you to log into its admin page in the browser of a tethered device to see that message.) This time, I decided to stay on hold to see how long I might wait to have a human rep pick up.
Forty-two minutes later, one did. After she asked for my account details like the previous rep, we got stuck in a loop when she asked for my number to confirm my account. I thought she meant the contact phone number saved in my account, but she was looking for the phone number of the hotspot. That’s a meaningless data point for that category of device, but I can see a wireless carrier assuming that a customer will have a phone with a number they can recite from memory.
Six minutes later, we had that squared away–but not the canceling-service part. The rep had to check something else that wasn’t clear to me, four minutes of silence ensued, and then she returned to ask if I had any other accounts with AT&T. After I said no, she said she was escalating my request–as if I was making an unusual demand instead of trying to conduct a routine business transaction.
As politely as I could, I told the rep that we could skip the customer-retention part because I had only bought the hotspot for a work project that was now done, and that she had zero chance at selling me on anything else. She informed me that canceling service would result in my account being closed; I said that would be fine. A few more minutes of back-and-forth later, she said she had processed my request.
Time elapsed for that call: 1:02:37. That’s an absurd waste of time to inflict a customer experience that will only make the customers in question want to avoid the company in question from now on. And it is not inevitable, because streaming video services make pausing or canceling service a simple online process.
I’m left with two questions. One is whether AT&T is actually no worse than other wireless carriers–have I only managed to avoid similiar experiences by not having switched wireless carriers on my own dime since 2013? The other is whether my AT&T hotspot line actually is closed after all that phone time. As in, since I have yet to get an e-mail confirmation of that and see no indication of it when I log into my account, will I need to visit an AT&T store to drive a stake through the heart of this account?
#ATT #CRM #customerExperience #customerRelationshipManagement #customerRetention #cx #hotspot #onHold #WiFiHotspot #Wirecutter