I said last week that I would take advantage of my amazing Alexa rank of 400 in Guatemala to write a big rant about my internet provider, Tigo, and will do that in Spanish this week, not only to spare my dear readers but also so that everyone here knows what a bunch of crooked thieves they are. But as I just made my yearly phone call to my UK internet provider to keep me on a 50% discount, I realized what a gap there is between the two companies and how you can learn how to run your business… or not.
The very best: O2 Broadband UK
O2 belongs to Telefónica, a Spanish group that overs telecommunications all over Europe. I have had a blissful relationship with them for the past 4 years, since I bought my flat in the UK. Every year, I call them and ask them to keep my broadband package at half price, in exchange for my loyalty for the next 12 months. Apart from a beginner once, every operator has smoothly obliged. If they don’t, hang up and call back, the next person will.
With O2, I pay £17.75, or close to $30 for unlimited high speed broadband, and a landline. The cost is about half and half for each item. If you have an O2 mobile, you can get a further £5 discount. If you join using a cashback site like Quidco, you will get some of your money back on top! At the moment there is a promotion for £40 cashback, or just over 2 months free.
The full price broadband is not competitive, Talk Talk or Tesco are much cheaper but as I said earlier, they happily renew the 50% discount every year.
O2 has on top of that one of the best customer service. And a super witty Twitter account. I have not had to deal with customer service a great deal, since they have always provided me with a great connection. But when I upgraded to a better package, they had to send me a router that never got there. No sweat, the sent a new one. They also have a little live chat that you can use to help you setup your internet. And calling them is free, so you can take your time.
One more thing I like with O2 is how simple everything is. There is no jargon, emails and bills are clear to understand, and you can manage everything online easily.
By making it so simple, they make it hard to leave them. Every year I think I should change provider to get a better new customer deal and some cashback, and then I feel so good with them I don’t mind the little extra on my bill. On the other hand, I change my electric supplier almost every year.
Now, on to the worst provider ever, Tigo Guatemala
From day 1, I knew getting internet access with Tigo would be no picnic in the park. I bought a 3G modem, with 2 weeks access included. Good thing we tried it in the shop, because it didn’t activate the promotion. The girl who attended me told me to go home, wait 24 hours and try again. Yeah, sure. I live one hour away, go to town every 10 days, and will go home with a broken USB modem. I told her no one would buy a faulty item and leave, so it took another hour of raising my voice and talking to the manager to eventually go home with another modem.
Then the two weeks ran out, and I bought a $20 monthly package that came with 1Go of “high speed” data, and according to their very own website “when you reach the limit, you will be able to navigate for the remainder of time at a slower speed”. After 7 days, my monthly package was blocked, and no slower speed to be seen. The “high speed” was pretty much nonexistent for the first week too.
All my attempts to communicate with customer services were vain, they said they are changing their packages, and there is no more surfing once you used up your allowance. Fine, but one month later, their website is still saying the contrary. It must be illegal in so many ways, and they are coning you into buying something that is not what they will give you. To make things worse, their data count is not reliable, if I download 150Mo of data, and do nothing else in the meanwhile, their meter says I used about 50% more.
They take advantage of the fact that in Guatemala, very few people really know about those things, and just assume a bad service is the norm. All their customer team employees have one word in their mouth “sorry, what you ask for is impossible”. Impossible to ask to get what I paid for? They have an army of sheep saying that all day to customers so people give up and keep paying for their lousy services.
Now I buy weekly packages that are $10, making my monthly charge over $40 for a slow, unreliable internet connection. I plan on changing provider as soon as possible.
It applies to any business
Here are two examples of how you could run the exact same business. You should remember all the time that your boss is not your boss, it is your customers, because the day you have no customers, no one will pay your salaries. O2 does everything to make the experience as pleasant as possible for its customer, and can even charge above market for that privilege. Tigo Guatemala is just trying to rip off people, until the day another company starts providing good service and they will be left with nothing.
Are you happy to pay a premium for a product with stellar customer service?
This post was featured on the Outlier Model, thank you!
lol, I love it. Internet providers in the U.S. suck too. I have had AT&T and Comcast and they have both been extremely incompetent and careless.
I hope they are cheap, at least!
There is noting worse than trying to deal with cable/internet companies. They charge way too much for too little quality and service.
That is one area where I have no idea what things actually should cost. Text messages are virtually free for the operator so charging $20 per month for unlimited texting is a rip off, but they do need to build towers and offer coverage, making it complicated to determine a fair price.
I will happily pay for what I get. Right now I am in a monthly fight with my cell phone provider since their network is garbage in my area and I am paying for “premium” data that I can’t even use. Their customer service doesn’t seem to care much, but at least they are giving me service credits when I fight enough (I’ve had some spare time at work to do this).
Hope you internet situation improves… It is one of those luxuries that has almost become a necessity these days.
It must be so annoying to have to fight every month just to get your service refunded! Here they invented an ”SOS” service, that is actually the 911 number and you pay $3 per month to use it. It gives you a kind of concierge and yellow pages service. But they add the 911 service to anyone changing plan, we have had to ask for it to be removed three times in two years. If their 10 million clients are not complaining, they are quietly ripping $30M off every month.
It depends on how much more the service costs. I use Sprint (mobile phones) here in Kansas City because they’re the cheapest (semi-major) cell phone provider. They don’t have as great of coverage as AT&T or Verizon, but I stick with them simply because I save $50/month.
There is a price for everything, but if the product/service was as bad as you described about Tigo then I’d probably leave and rant as well. 🙂
They ARE that bad, there are some stories you just can’t make up! They are taking advantage of being only one of two broadband providers. I am leaving to what will probably not be a much greener pasture. I understand your point that cheap makes you bear a bad service, it does that for me too, except in this case it’s not even cheap…
Okay, so in Tigo’s defense… it’s not necessarily an apples to apples comparison. Broadband companies in the UK are providing services over a fairly population dense area, where Guatemala’s is less than a third as dense. (Using wikipedia’s stats, UK has about 1052 ppl/sqmi compared to Guatemala’s 315.)
That means to deliver services to the same number of people, Tigo has to deliver services across a much larger area, which likely requires more infrastructure, etc.
It’s the same thing in the US when people compare rural access to city access for many services. It’s just not a fair comparison because the businesses face very different challenges.
You make a very good point. I don’t know if it makes any difference that I only can get internet via the cell phone waves, not cable internet, in terms of infrastructure, but there should be more cell phone towers now, to carry the internet data as well. I understand that the connection can’t be compared to high speed fiber DSL, and internet is one of the rare things that is more expensive here than in Europe or the US, but the main point was their customer service offering nothing but lies when advertising a product online that is not the one you really get, and getting away with it.
With respect to competition and what it does to prices, I do miss the days of dial-up. When you could choose between dozens of ISPs, the prices were continually lowering over time. Now that everyone is switching to broadband, your choices are pretty much cable with the local cable monopoly or DSL with the local phone monopoly. They lock you into contracts as a matter of form for a savings of a couple dollars per month. Meanwhile, the prices are going up every year.
I have no idea what broadband should cost. But I guess at first it was very expensive until it reached a bottom low with technology getting better, and now it can only go up with salary and running costs increases. It is annoying to have monopolies as only options though, but with a real free market those companies may not be offering broadband to many people.
“Are you happy to pay a premium for a product with stellar customer service?”
Not nec. happy but content. We have an insurance agent who does a ridiculously awesome job when it comes to customer service. We may be paying slightly higher fees on home insurance and whatnot, but she does an amazing job so I wouldn’t consider switching.
Good customer service really makes a difference.
We only have on provider that offers high speed internet where we live. It isn’t great but is pretty cheap. It is sad when everyone expects horrible service so that’s what you get.
It is sadly the norm here. People aren’t used to complain, and have been used for too long without saying anything. In the capital city where people usually complain, customer service is generally better.
Wow, O2 sounds like a pretty awesome company. I use Shaw here in Canada, and as long as I keep their “new customer” promotion, internet and TV is about $30 a month. Regularly, it’s $80 – yikes. I have to occasionally cancel/switch account holders in order to maintain this price.
I definitely do happily pay a bit more in order to get good customer service though. I’ve avoided Future Shop since the dawn of time because when I was 18 and wanted to make a purchase, they told me to “come back when you’re a big girl.” Uh huh…
Lol big girl! I was asked out of a bar at 27 for carrying no ID!
O2 is awesome, and they cut the crap about renewing contracts with another name, my contract has been the same for 4 years and they just renew it at new customer’s discount.
We have two internet suppliers. In the UK at home we use Zen Internet which is not the cheapest but regularly comes out the best. This costs about £30 a month with a 200GB download limit. The big thing is that there is almost never any contention – we have a 16Mbps ADSL2+ line and get exactly that, even at peak usage times (generally in the small hours when gamers are still up!). We are thinking of going FTTC (VDSL) for the same cost buy 69Mbps down and 20Mbps unmetered up (which means we could host emergency websites off it if necessary) but only 100GB download. Since older sons have left home, that is more than necessary but it would cost about £200 to install and for the new modem.
In Bulgaria we use Blizzoo in our apartment which gives similar service to ADSL (about 16Mbps) and costs rather less (27 leva a month all in, about 14 Euros or £12), although sometimes it slows down. It means I can log into my home system in the UK and work as if I am there. Blizzoo also includes telephone and cable TV. Both of these services are comparable but the UK is more expensive.
I guess Guatemala will catch up one day but I suspect they will need some sort of regulator because otherwise, as you say, most people will not fight the system and just get ripped off.
You must be a proper pain in the ass to them!!!! Well done!
I most certainly am a PITA! today my transfer rate is 60kbps which is actually good for their ”superfast broadband package”…
Wow and here I thought Comcast was a complete rip off. The problem is that there is no real competition. There are a few companies and they all charge about the same and installation and moving to a new service is a hassle for many. And these companies know it. Welcome to the cable/internet world of 2013!
the lack of competition is a problem. In Europe more companies compete, packages are a better deal and switching is very easy. I hope it changes elsewhere.
Me too, but it probably will not happen. For example in Philly, Comcast rules as it is their home office and they have a giant footprint here.
I must say I am from Europe and Pauline is right. Here lots of companies compete which makes the price lower. But I wouldn’t recommend O2 at all. Don’t have a good experience with them.
O2, in my country, has been extremely incompetent. Just when i was going to get my RSS torrent done downloading. O2 became slower, they directly said through the internet speed “torrenting games is piracy and it’s illegal”.
I don’t know about these services but it looks similar to the charter spectrum services I am using in the USA. Its easy to manage and the send clear bill emails which are easy to understand and they get no hidden charges they are faithful with their customers if any of you ever came to the USA then I prefer you to use spectrum services here.