Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: I'm AT&T and I'm Writing to Help You Message-ID: <12640@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 26 Sep 90 09:27:26 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 33 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 682, Message 3 of 13 On Sep 25 at 23:41, Alec writes: > If they wanted us to "save money" they would just lower their rates > rather than trying to sell us a "money saving plan." I was wondering how long it would take for someone to realize the absurdity of "calling plans". An associate of mine refers to this as "charging for a discount". AT&T, Sprint, MCI, and all the other IXCs aren't the only ones who play this game, but the LECs do it as well. A Pac*Bell person explained that, "calling plans are not designed to save anyone money. They are designed to guarantee a level of revenue and to create the impression that the customer maximizes his savings the more he uses the service. He tends to make more calls to take the greatest benefit of that special plan that he is paying for." If you think about it, why "WATS" or "ProWATS" or "ROA" or any of that stuff? Why not just have a sliding scale where the rate gets cheaper as usage increases? The "special" plans are nothing more than theater to convince the customer that he is getting something "special". Also, "plans" make it necessary for the customer to continually re-evaluate his service to make sure that he has the right "plan". What the service provider hopes all the while is that the customer will forget about it and will end up paying for a plan that is useless. A customer of mine paid AT&T hundreds of dollars over the course of a couple of years for a LD plan and Sprint was the customer's carrier! John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !