AT&T Wants low ARPU customers gone
- Thread starter ncted
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 93
- Views 10K
That’s actually nothing me. D* before ATT and now ATT have been singing that song yet the deeply discounted sign ups with $300 gift cards keep going on. And reading here, existing customers that call in are not only having good luck with getting discounts to stay at higher discounts than before ATT.
IMO, lots of chin music!
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
IMO, lots of chin music!
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
Yeah, I am not sure what to make of it. Dish said they were getting rid of less desirable customers, and their churn rate has declined somewhat. I wonder if that is the kind of thing DirecTV is talking about doing. Certainly, they are not offering new customers great deals on DNow like they were.
DISH goes about this in a different way. They want paying customers, Charlie explained it years ago, they don't go after people who say they will leave if they don't normally pay on time they don't offer them anything to stay. I have always thought that is part of the reason they have had high turnover or lose each quarter. By far not the only reason but it plays into it.
There are companies who do what it is being suggested At&t does and tries to keep those who are paying for more services or the bigger packages etc. I don't run a big for profit company, but I do think with the cord cutting craze most any business as long as they pay is good business to have. Unless you have priced somethings too low and those customers do not make you enough money I suppose.
There are companies who do what it is being suggested At&t does and tries to keep those who are paying for more services or the bigger packages etc. I don't run a big for profit company, but I do think with the cord cutting craze most any business as long as they pay is good business to have. Unless you have priced somethings too low and those customers do not make you enough money I suppose.
Which is what they said is Supposivly wrong with the DS* Now set up and they raised the prices twice to make up for it and people left in droves because thats not what they signed up for ... thier packages went up by $20 per month for most of them that stayed .... remember, D* Now was supposed to be the low cost cord cutting answer .... not any more.
Well, if AT&T wants less churn then they need to expand their fiber footprint further.
Because right now AT&T's Gigabit Fiber service is the only service that AT&T sells that's worth subscribing to and staying subscribed to long term.
AT&T's mobile wireless plans, DSL, and TV services all leave much to be desired and have plenty of superior offerings available from competitors.
Because right now AT&T's Gigabit Fiber service is the only service that AT&T sells that's worth subscribing to and staying subscribed to long term.
AT&T's mobile wireless plans, DSL, and TV services all leave much to be desired and have plenty of superior offerings available from competitors.
You really need to read between the lines here.
This is what this article really means...
1) We have a churn problem that is due to mostly cord cutting.
We don’t want to admit it to Wall Street that people would rather have Internet and cell phones over Directv, so we will blame this on us getting rid of those lower ARPU customers.
2) We are trying to clean up our customer base, which means that when a customer comes off promotion or their contract ends, we are not going to offer further discounts to keep them as a customer. They can either start paying rack rates, or they can disconnect.
3) We created the problem we are in right now ourselves by discounting the hell out of our prices and plans in an attempt to quickly gain more customers.
The problem is that over the years the prices have gone up so much, the promotional rate in some cases is almost double the rack rate.
This creates sticker shock to the customer after the promotion ends and the customer sees what Directv really costs per month.
This is what this article really means...
1) We have a churn problem that is due to mostly cord cutting.
We don’t want to admit it to Wall Street that people would rather have Internet and cell phones over Directv, so we will blame this on us getting rid of those lower ARPU customers.
2) We are trying to clean up our customer base, which means that when a customer comes off promotion or their contract ends, we are not going to offer further discounts to keep them as a customer. They can either start paying rack rates, or they can disconnect.
3) We created the problem we are in right now ourselves by discounting the hell out of our prices and plans in an attempt to quickly gain more customers.
The problem is that over the years the prices have gone up so much, the promotional rate in some cases is almost double the rack rate.
This creates sticker shock to the customer after the promotion ends and the customer sees what Directv really costs per month.
And really all this crap that AT&T is going through right now with customers cancelling after their contract is over, is their own doing.
Almost virtually every sales person I talk to who sells Directv does NOT disclose the second year pricing.
First of all it’s hard to find any new customers these days that even want to sign up for Directv. If you do manage to get a customer who is willing to sign up, if they have any intelligence or decent credit, they absolutely will not sign up or cancel a pending install the second you disclose the second year pricing.
The only customers who this does not make a difference to are the ones who have bad credit or owe money to Dish or the cable company and are happy they even qualify for anything.
The reasoning for lying is simple. The sales people are so broke, they need any sale they can make. Also, they know when the rate goes up after the year Directv will discount the package again to get them to stay. Or in the case of Auto pay with paperless billing they may not notice the price increase at all.
I have been in this business 20 years. This is really what is going on.
Almost virtually every sales person I talk to who sells Directv does NOT disclose the second year pricing.
First of all it’s hard to find any new customers these days that even want to sign up for Directv. If you do manage to get a customer who is willing to sign up, if they have any intelligence or decent credit, they absolutely will not sign up or cancel a pending install the second you disclose the second year pricing.
The only customers who this does not make a difference to are the ones who have bad credit or owe money to Dish or the cable company and are happy they even qualify for anything.
The reasoning for lying is simple. The sales people are so broke, they need any sale they can make. Also, they know when the rate goes up after the year Directv will discount the package again to get them to stay. Or in the case of Auto pay with paperless billing they may not notice the price increase at all.
I have been in this business 20 years. This is really what is going on.
UNless Fiber isn't available there, OR not at a price point your willing to give up.
I have installed anything d=from 768 (not sure why) to 110 mbbs.
I haven't been able to get into the Fiber Installs yet.
768 is perfect for a atm or credit card machine..you are just sending a number
Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!
Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!
The majority of businesses are running 1.5 to 3 ....
Like you said, all there doing is sending CC type stuff.
AND with those type of speeds, it keeps thier employees off the wifi side of it.
I agree. AT&T Internet (formerly Uverse Internet, aka fiber-to-the-node-then-DSL-to-the-home) is slowly losing subs over to cable, I think. But AT&T has been pretty aggressively expanding their AT&T Fiber footprint the past couple years and they're going to keep going with it. For one thing, they need more fiber densification for 5G wireless, so those two things will work together. I think their longer-term hope is to use 5G-over-AirGig as a sort of "wireless fiber" backhaul, or even running down residential streets, with the last hop from the utility pole to surrounding homes being regular fixed wireless 5G.
AT&T Taking Broadband Nationwide in 3-5 Years via Fiber & 5G | Light Reading
Thats right ...
Besides, most of the time the employees don't know the wifi password ... occasionally they ask the wifi turned off.
I don't know about the "Losing internet to Cable" statement ...
I think at least here, it back and forth.
I'm sure ATT does lose subs to cable, but everyday I'm putting in service to people that are leaving cable internet as well...
Fiber here is going live June 1st from what I'm hearing, but thats nothing official. (residential wise, businesses have been using it for quite some time and thats only in certain areas, some residential have also been up for awhile, I'm just thinking about a few areas that I have been working in.)
As far as U-verse loosing subs to cable, the fact of the matter is the average customer doesn’t know any better.
To most people internet is internet, and the only thing they seem to understand is data usage due to their cell phones.
I sell Comcast and every day I get a customer who asks if it’s “unlimited” and I have to explain the 1024 gig data cap. Then the conversation turns to them worrying 1024 gigs is not enough, until I have to assure them that very rarely does anyone actually hit that cap.
I get a lot of people who complain about “slow” internet and believe it or not most of its attributed to a crappy router, crappy computer or some garbage cell phone they have.
Actually, most people can get by with 25 megs.
Sadly enough, customers will always go with “the cheapest one” which is really why AT&T changed their plans so it was 1 price for anything below 50 megs and the customer would get the fastest speed available.
Too many customers of AT&T would buy based solely on price, which meant most people would go with 3 megs.
The sales people where afraid to up-sell the faster packages, as I’m many cases the customer would bundle with Directv, and we needed the lower price point to sell both services.
The issue this created was customers would switch from cable, and then complain the internet was slow, where the issue was the customer not wanting to pay for the speed internet they really needed.
As far as AT&T Fiber, it really doesn’t make a difference to most people, because they get the cheapest package anyways.
What the Fiber does is make every address in an area serviceable, and there is no more issues with the speeds dropping as the customer gets further and further away from the VRAD, which is the tan box where the fiber converts to copper for the last 200-4000 feet
To most people internet is internet, and the only thing they seem to understand is data usage due to their cell phones.
I sell Comcast and every day I get a customer who asks if it’s “unlimited” and I have to explain the 1024 gig data cap. Then the conversation turns to them worrying 1024 gigs is not enough, until I have to assure them that very rarely does anyone actually hit that cap.
I get a lot of people who complain about “slow” internet and believe it or not most of its attributed to a crappy router, crappy computer or some garbage cell phone they have.
Actually, most people can get by with 25 megs.
Sadly enough, customers will always go with “the cheapest one” which is really why AT&T changed their plans so it was 1 price for anything below 50 megs and the customer would get the fastest speed available.
Too many customers of AT&T would buy based solely on price, which meant most people would go with 3 megs.
The sales people where afraid to up-sell the faster packages, as I’m many cases the customer would bundle with Directv, and we needed the lower price point to sell both services.
The issue this created was customers would switch from cable, and then complain the internet was slow, where the issue was the customer not wanting to pay for the speed internet they really needed.
As far as AT&T Fiber, it really doesn’t make a difference to most people, because they get the cheapest package anyways.
What the Fiber does is make every address in an area serviceable, and there is no more issues with the speeds dropping as the customer gets further and further away from the VRAD, which is the tan box where the fiber converts to copper for the last 200-4000 feet
Some customers do, some don't. Either way, industry stats over the past several years have clearly showed cable internet growing at the expense of telco (DSL) providers. Uverse is basically a faster form of DSL but can't keep up with cable in terms of speeds. And whether consumers need more speed or not, lots of them want it and cable has succeeded in selling them on it. A few Uverse customers closest to their VRADs can get 100 Mbps service, which is pretty fast, but lots of Uverse customers further out are on speed tiers like 50 or 25 or 18. When I checked for a nearby friend a year or so ago, her address only qualified for the very lowest Uverse speed tier and couldn't even receive Uverse TV service (not enough bandwidth, I guess). Needless to say, she went with Comcast.
AT&T wouldn't be spending the money to upgrade their Uverse areas (as well as adjacent areas that never even got Uverse in the first place) to full fiber if they thought Uverse was sufficient to compete against cable. It may have been back in 2006 when it launched but it's not now 13 years later.
