"And the Beat Goes On"

Doc picks up on my rant's on customer service, and adds a bit more

The Doc Searls Weblog : Saturday, July 7, 2007

He also linked to this : TDCRC Home Page - Welcome!

Related (sorta) : Backchannel

"The first famous instance of backchannel communications influencing a talk occurred on March 26, 2002, at the PC Forum conference, when Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio famously lamented the difficulties of raising capital. Journalists Dan Gillmor and Doc Searls posted accounts, from the audience, in real-time, to their weblogs. A reader of Gillmore's Buzz Bruggeman emailed information about a recent sizeable transaction that had made Nacchio very wealthy; both Gillmore and Searls updated their weblogs with that information.

In her article referring to the "Parallel Channel," PC Forum host Esther Dyson wrote, "around that point, the audience turned hostile." Many commentators later attributed the audience's hostility to the information people shared while surfing and communicating on their laptops during Nacchio's remarks."

Not only did the audience turn hostile, but as PC Forum was "open mike" and Nacchio was queried on his position that shareholders were clueless, while he was selling, Joe turned hostile.

Now, Nacchio has been convicted on 19 counts of insider trading ... sentencing due July 27th.
AP : "Mr. Nacchio, who resigned from Qwest Communications International Inc. under pressure in June 2002, is scheduled to be sentenced July 27 in U.S. District Court. He was charged with 42 counts of insider trading for $101 million worth of transactions between January and May 2001.

The jury acquitted him on 23 counts, but concluded that his criminal action began after an April 2001 conference call when he failed to inform investors of the problems the company faced. Jurors convicted him on 19 counts for transactions during April and May of 2001."

Then we have Sprint:
Looney Dunes: The Numb Utility Saga continues:
"Other : Sprint has the goofiest phone bill pay system.
After you key in the payment and get the 'robo-voice' (older and less pleasant than Charter) reading back your Visa information and the question 'is this correct?'
Respond in positively and the same voice gives you a 'confirm' number and asks 'is this correct?'

Huh? You just gave me the number 'robo-bitch'"

And this week WSJournal:
"Sprint Nextel Corp. has taken the unusual step of disconnecting customers who call customer service excessively."