I think this reflects poorly on the whole culture of that company, and indirectly on other “old school” corporations.

The conventional wisdom (or at least mine) is that Steve Jobs might be a controlling, egomaniacal prick, but at least he understands what his company is doing day to day. If someone told me Randall Stephenson doesn’t use a single AT&T product, and just sits in an office spouting buzzwords about market caps and mindshare viability while looking at his stock options, I would not doubt it for 1 second.

True or false, this news doesn’t change that perception one bit.

I m really disappointed with att service. I started ATT service 7 months months ago.
When i called the service department in march 2010.The offer me internet & phone service.
I wanted the high speed internt 6M or higher but ATT represent said the area i live they
provide maximum 1.5M. I started att service in march 2010 & att sale representative told
me there is no contract if you don’t like the internet service or the speed you want then
I can cancel it anytime & att started taking Internet charges out from my credit card.After
7 months I called att to ask them if they have high speed internet service available in the area i live.
Att said not yet so i canceled my service & att cancel service department canceled the the service & said.
I have some refund left which att ‘ll send back & i received some amount back to my card.
After 2 months i got charge from att $120.00 on my credit card.
I called att collection department & spoke to Michal Cambel according to him he is supervisor for this department.
He said they charge $120.00 because of early cancellation fee.I said there was no contract when i got the service
& att representative said if i m not certified with service so i can cancel it anytime that’s why i canceled but he said
it was a contract.We can’t do anything about it. I called the att service depart as a new customer to find out what
they say when someone start new service with att & the att sales representative said exact same statement
what he told me 7 months ago.”There is no contract & if you are not certified, you can simply cancel it & there ‘ll no extra charges”.
ATT is lieing with there customers & telling wrong statement when someone want to has there service & once they get service they put
them under contract & if customer stop the service then att charge cancellation fee &
say when you got the service we might had some other plans & now we have some different
plan.I m going to leave this feedback on internet also i have businesses & i m going to
switch my internet service for all my offices with someone else.

The letter was not a bomb threat, so that part of your post is just simply ridiculous. As for CEOs, they are running the show. The Buck stops with them. If they right their ship properly, properly train their people, and provide simple and effective mechanisms for addressing and resolving customer concerns, then they can spend their time being more strategic. If, however, they are MBS morons who are simply following a formula from one of their text books and have no mechanism to address customer concerns, then they should expect their customers to go to the top, rather than waste days or weeks speaking with company beurocrats.

It’s simple. Cell phone service is a commodity these days. The market is equally split and there is no customer loyalty. People will constantly jump from provider to provider for more services at a more affordable price. AT&T and the other cell companies understand this. They are all the same and the game is no longer to grow their business by market share, but to lock in as much future income on a long term contract a possible, which they can claim on their books today to keep their shareholders happy. They are simply resorting to the lowest common denominator, Much like politics and the way Washington is broken. What would shake things up is a start-up company that had enough capital to offer good coverage with simple contracts and simple terms. However, the status quo companies (of which AT&T is one) would use all their power to keep such a company from becoming reality.

So if you threaten a company that if they don’t get their act together you will no longer give them business, and they can order a cease and desist? Really? That is your logic? BTW, have you ever tried talking politely to the drones at AT&T? Have you ever tried asking for a manager or supervisor? If you did, then you would know that the canned response is “Supervisors don’t take calls from customers. You can leave your number and they will call you back in 24-48 hours.” Of course, they call back about 30-days later. You, my friend, have obviously never dealt with this company.

If the CEO does not want to be contacted. The company should set-up a support system for their products that actually works to resolve issues and listen to their customers. I am looking up his information right now because I have a persistent issue with U-verse that has lasted a month. And I continue to be told by the support staff the team that can help is not available at this time. This is an unacceptable answer. And the company officers should be made aware of this situation.