AT&T quietly abandons ‘fewest dropped calls’ campaign
By Triston McIntyre
Undoubtedly more than a few consumers will notice AT&T’s bold marketing slogan, “the network with the fewest dropped calls” will be discontinued soon. However, in its place is a much more mild-mannered, almost sheepish slogan, “more bars in more places.” After all, why complain about frequently dropped calls when can say you have more bars than before?
A representative for AT&T spoke out on the switch in campaigns:
“We are still continuing to run ads that emphasize the importance of not dropping calls. That campaign is continuing. But for some time now we have been transitioning the overall messaging of our advertising to what we call ‘more bars in more places’ because that’s the number one reason cited by folks when they think about a high quality network. And more bars in more places translates into coverage — how much coverage does your network give you — and we have the largest digital wireless network in the country. So what you’re seeing is simply a transition of advertising messaging which takes place all the time, and we are continuing to run our dropped calls advertising but just in a different context.”
Is it really that well-intentioned? Upon further investigation, it appears that AT&T is being strong-armed to abandon the campaign, as claims of having the fewest dropped calls are simply untrue.
Wired reports that Telephia, a consumer-oriented telecom researching firm, published a report that AT&T twisted for their own means; in actuality, the report found that AT&T was not the most reliable network in major metropolitan areas including Houston, Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles.
To make matters worse for AT&T, Consumer Reports and JD Power found similar evidence, and consider AT&T to be among the worst service providers in regards to reliability and overall consumer happiness with the service.
In truth, with the attention AT&T has been receiving as the sole provider of the iPhone, there was no way unsubstantiated claims like having the fewest dropped calls could be maintained for long. So, what is more valuable to you? Lots of service bars with frequently dropped calls, or just consistency in calls?
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August 24th, 2007
Well I worked for AT&T (then Cingular) for three years ending August of 2006. To give you the inside story about this crap when the Telphia report came out the area that AT&T had the fewest dropped calls was actually downtown San Francisco, roughly a 13 block radius (per the report) We were weren’t supposed to know this and all customer service reps were specifically told not to quote anything from the report, nor were we to disclose the name of the company. They had this information posted in their customer rep information system CSP. This was a huge deal and we had this come up in our weekly team meetings (they call huddles) over the course of the next month. Then the information mysteriously disappeared from CSP. They told us to proudly support the ads but not to disclose anything. So there ya go, now it finally got dropped, just like there calls. I mean you work for a company for 3 years and can’t get a signal in your own building. (I worked at the Fayetteville NC call center) I paid for cellphone service the entire time I worked there and did not want to get their terrible service. HAH!