Goodbye Eircom.
In the current economic climate it is not unreasonable for people to expect to be treated with a little more decency / common sense / reverence by companies providing goods and services. In particular big companies that had previously operated as monopoly providers that are now faced with the most aggressive competition they ever will face at a time when this company is clearly struggling to emerge from its monopolistic working attitudes towards its customers. eircom previously enjoyed civil service status for all its staff and management, and now with the telecoms market deregulated the new service providers are providing better value for money, better services, and certainly a better attitude towards their customers.
Despite being aggressively pursued by these companies I resisted all offers from these companies and stuck with eircom as my telecoms service provider. For twenty five years eircom was my telephone provider and when they ventured into the mobile phone market I got my first mobile phone from them and when the service providers arrived I stuck with them on the basis that they were the wholly Irish owned company providing good working conditions and salaries for their staff.
Basically I stuck with the company through thick and thin, good and bad, whatever the guff I got from them, when I was paying through the nose for their services. In the recent past I have not had much contact with them other than the lack of speed on my broadband service. I have never received the right speeds and even when I complained I never got what I was paying for, however I still resisted changing through some twisted logic that I used to stay with this company on the basis that it was still providing Irish employment. Even when they moved their call centre out of Ireland I was a bit peeved but I still stayed with them on the basis that they were still the dominant played in the country and I think I still believed that they would come into the real world of consumer service providers, the world where the customer is king. I subscribed to that theory a long time ago although I refined it slightly to mean that the customer is not always right, but that they are always the customer, and somehow as a service provider I need to get them to buy my goods and services, and thus I would get their money from them in the most efficient most profitable way.
Anyway I have been treated in my opinion very badly by Eircom and this is the straw that has broken the camels back. Last week my service was cut off by Eircom for non payment of a one hundred and fifty six euro bill. This was just one bill for a two monthly period and I have regularly gone over into a second and I,m sure even into a third billing period. Anyway when my wife called them to query why we had no service she came up against a very rude person, and got no sympathy what so ever. This lady insisted the bill must be paid and if we wanted the service turned back on then we would also have to pay a twenty five euro reconnection fee. What annoyed me about this bill is that we have a standing monthly charge of sixty five euro per month, and therefore the calls value on this bill is twenty six euro for a two month period, which indicates that we do not use the landline very much, and the biggest portion of the bill is for broadband which as I said before we have never got a satisfactory level of speed that we have paid for.
The upshot of the issue is we are moving to a different service provider. My wife decided to move her company (which uses a substantial amount of phone calls each month) to a different service provider.
Eircom is now losing at least two customers, my home and my wife's business land lines business. They are also most likely going to lose family and friends accounts as we now no longer have any reason to be part of phone deals that allow each other to call Eircom lines. They are also going to lose our mobile business which involves at least twenty mobile phones that are tied up in various deals usually allowing each other to call as part of a package deal.
Apart from choosing to give our business to a rival company it makes good financial sense to change to UPC because we are going to save twenty five euro per month while getting a speed of 30mbs on our broadband service.
I estimate that Eircoms action last week are going to cost the company about fifty thusand euro per year. We will get some personal pleasure in exercising our prerogative in moving our business to a company that treat us with respect and dignity, (and anyway) if they do not treat us right, then we will just move again.
The age of consumer awareness is upon us all and companies better get to grips with the fact that consumers are choosing to exercise the right to decide who their money goes to, and I believe that those companies that put the customer as king will be the winners in the end.
From the reports today about the ESB and Gas companies cutting off supply to customers and then charging a reconnection fee of two hundred euro, the cynic in me now thinks that these large companies have turned to disconnections as a source of revenue.
So goodbye Eircom it has not been nice knowing you, now if only I could do the same with the electricity and gas suppliers.
