David Poque over at the New York Times is on the campaign trail against telecom providers who are squeezing a few more cents from callers using answer-phone services.
By elongating their messages per caller and per user retrieving their messages the phone companies are maximising their profits. Ever concerned with their ARPU (Average Revenue per User) the companies are always on the lookout for that additional bonus.
David has picked four of the main carriers to campaign against offering contact addresses for disgruntled customers to contract.
I totally condone his efforts. I have no issue with phone companies maximising their ARPUs. But there is a right way and a wrong way. If a provider comes up with a genuinely useful service that I want to use, I don’t mind being charged for this. Adding a few extra pence/cents to each use of a service unnecessarily is only going to generate negative feelings in your custom base.
In Scotland we have a word for this…. Sleekit, Its a useful word and somehow sounds just right!
Take Back the Beep Campaign - Pogue’s Posts Blog - NYTimes.com
