Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed in the likes of AT&T Mobiity, Sprint and T-Mobile US, and to a lesser extent Verizon Wireless.
You see, earlier this week respected surveyor of public opinion J.D. Power released its latest cellular network performance results based on a pretty extensive set of questions and guidelines. The results show consumers are most impressed with Verizon Wireless, with the carrier taking the top spot across all six regions J.D. Power breaks the country down into.
The three remaining nationwide operators gobbled up the rest of the spots in various orders, which if I had to do J.D. Power’s job in providing on overall ranking would have AT&T Mobility No. 2, followed by a close race for No. 3 between T-Mobile US and Sprint.
Those results are really not much of a shock, as they line up with previous consumer surveys conducted by J.D. Power as well as other network performance rankings. In fact, just last week, RootMetrics released its own results based on tapping into device performance that showed basically the same results.
And that’s where my loss occurs.
Following the release of the RootMetrics numbers, nearly everyone went nuts.
Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure tapped into his newfound fascination with Twitter to launch a scathing attack on T-Mobile US and its CEO John Legere, an attack made even funnier in that Claure was gloating over a second-place finish that was far and away the highlight of its RootMetrics performance.
Legere – already a Twitter master shown by his fascination in tapping into new social media outlets so he can soon move beyond the Twitter space – countered the attack with whimsical “R-rated” anecdotes of his own that yours truly previously stated should lead both CEOs to a trapezoidal cage.
Heck, even Verizon Wireless, which is not known to go beyond a simple press release in touting its awesome-ness when it comes to continually scoring wins in network performance metrics, put together a pretty well-done video explaining just how awesome its network is.
However, this week, none of this childish interaction took place following release of the J.D. Power numbers. No one took to Twitter/Facebook/Periscope to launch a personal attack on their fellow millionaire/billionaire CEOs. No one spent 10 seconds on Photoshop putting together a cute picture combining popular culture with a catchy meme. No one turned on a video camera to spout off on just how awesome they are and how lame their competitors are.
What’s the point of these network performance rankings if no one is going to go all middle school with the results?
I could only come up with three conclusions as to the lack of any excitement:
1. Everyone was so worn out by their work last week that they really just couldn’t come up with anything witty to say.
2. Everyone had escaped to their shared private island where all telecom CEOs go to in order to escape the childish state in which the telecom market has devolved.
3. No one really cares what J.D. Power has to say anymore.
I doubt the answer is No. 1, as I am assuming these multibillion-dollar companies have entire teams handling all the “personal” social media activity of their respective management organizations.
I sort of hope the answer is No. 2, as the thought of rival executives jetting off to some private “telecom” island together so they can plot their next competitive moves is just way too compelling of an idea.
Legere: Marcelo, it really hurt my feelings when you said I was ‘straight outta bullsh*t.’
Claure: Shut up John and pass the margaritas.
I most definitely hope it’s not No. 3, as that would just be sad for the history of people getting to brag about being awarded a J.D. Power award for best Realtor?
Who knew?
Plus, while J.D. Power appears to lay out in-depth how it conducts its surveys, I think we all know what really goes on behind the scenes.
In the end, I can only hope the lack of Twitter-rage was just an aberration that we can hope never happens again. Because, what good is all of this unless the adults in charge aren’t boasting of their achievements at the expense of others.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. Here is a quick, but satisfying extra:
• I guess in response to my critique from above regarding the lack of childish activity this week in light of the J.D. Power survey, perhaps Sprint was just too busy coming up with a new way to attract customers.
The carrier late this week “celebrated” AT&T’s recently acquisition of DirecTV by launching a promo offering one free year of wireless service to DirecTV customers who switch to Sprint. (We will ignore all the “non-free” aspects of the offer, including the need to purchase a device at full price, having to pay monthly taxes and fees – though not sure what the tax on free is – and the $36 activation fee.)
I typically turn a quizzical eye to “free” offerings having never quite found such offers to provide the level of satisfaction of non-free services. Sure, buffets are great in theory, but past experience has left me feeling ashamed for eating such a vast quantity of barely edible food.
That’s where I feel this Sprint offer comes down. Not that Sprint does not offer a fine cellular experience, but recent history has shown the carrier to be struggling a bit in terms of “quality,” and by offering a quality challenged service for free makes it seem even less so.
I know Sprint is in “try anything” mode at the moment in terms of turning around operations, but at this point it might make more sense to throw all available funds at fixing the core rather than throwing cash at potential customers.
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