John Linton
......not just one (the end user) as so many residential customers seem to assume.
Yesterday, I had a pleasant email interchange with an Exetel ADSL customer to whom we had sent a 30 day cancellation notice and he wanted to know why that had happened. As I had previously briefly contacted him in the past he had my email address and thought that he would ask me about the request for him to move to another provider. I explained to him how Exetel's policies worked in terms of providing services at the lowest possible costs to end users of broadband and telephone services and I explained to him, with some of the base arithmetic, how very, very little money we made from providing any single service to any residential user and some of the reasons why we chose to make so little money while risking so much of our own and putting in so much hard work - far more per person than any of our competitors in my opinion.
Basically, as the simple arithmetic of providing broadband services clearly shows, Exetel make a little over one dollar a month per service provided (that's an average across all different types of services but it is pretty standard across all services month to month). There are certainly months when we certainly don't make as much as one dollar a service per month and the occasional month when we make a little more than that. He said he was surprised we made so little but understood that many small communications companies go broke trying to compete with the large carriers to provide communications services in Australia so he could see that there could be scenarios such as the one I outlined to him.
I don't know whether he actually believed what I said despite him saying he accepted the figures as, like so many people, he shares the relatively common view that "companies" make big profits and all "customers" are hugely profitable for "companies". He also shared the other common view that "companies" never do enough to provide an acceptable service nor do they do enough to resolve any issue with the service when the customer experiences a problem.....and that was his view and he believed that it was appropriate for him to use the TIO to pressure Exetel (his words) in to getting his problem "fixed" although he accepted that there was nothing that Exetel could do at the time, he felt he needed to express his frustration and if it cost his ISP money then "serves them right". He agreed that when his problem was finally traced to a fault within his own premises that it was:
a) Entirely of his own causing and only he could resolve it and he should have accepted Exetel's and the carrier's advice that that was there the problem was occurring.
b) That the TIO was completely unable to speed up the process of determining and fixing the fault or actually adding anything positive or even useful to the problem resolution process.
c) That there was nothing more Exetel could have done at the time or subsequently.
...but he was adamant that he was quite within his rights, when he thought he wasn't getting the right advice from Exetel and the carrier, to involve the TIO (who as it turned out did nothing except charge Exetel for doing nothing except waste expensive time) and thus involve Exetel in significant costs and inconvenience in finally determining that his problems were entirely of his own causing. I didn't disagree with him that he, as an Australian resident, was entitled to take whatever, legal, actions were available to him - even though some legal actions available to him could not and didn't help in any way and in fact delayed eventual resolution and cost unnecessary money - to his supplier. He thought that it OK that he "used the resources available to him" and he was sorry he cost us unnecessary money but he was really annoyed at the time and it must be alright because he now apologised"......
...and there was the problem....IT IS NOT ALRIGHT.......
.......Exetel is caused unnecessary expense by an unreasonable customer and not only don't we make a tiny profit for the 'privilege' of a lot of people working very hard and the owners of the company risking a lot of their personal money for a return that is less than can be achieved by relatively sensible 'passive' investments (no work at all by anyone)....but we actually lost a great deal of money for the 'privilege' of providing this customer with the lowest cost broad band service available in Australia. We lost so much money that even if we provided the service for another ten years we would never recover it.
This explanation was given over an exchange of emails ending with the logical conclusion that if a customer believes that Exetel isn't going to do enough to resolve a perceived problem with the service it's the correct course of action to "punish" Exetel by causing them to be put in a position where they can never ever make any money out of providing the service 'for ever' ....then the sensible action for Exetel is to stop providing the service once the initial contract period has been completed. It's also more than sensible for the 'customer' to stop using the service of any supplier that is so remiss in their abilities that the customer believes that they need the intervention of a third party to perform at an acceptable level as soon as their contract ends.
Its why there is a contract - of course - so that both parties have a legal and graceful 'exit' from an unsuitable situation.
Despite my best efforts he didn't accept that it was reasonable for the 'supplier' to view 'the customer' in the way the contract explicitly provides for the 'customer' to view the 'supplier' - the supply of a service for a fixed term at a fixed price with an end date for the contract's commitments. Either party can end the arrangement if they are dissatisfied with what has been provided in the past or may be provided in the future.....in Exetel's case if we have failed to make money out of a contract then we would prefer not to repeat that mistake - eminently sensible and completely commercially essential.
Based on his 'final' email I don't think that particular customer understood the basics of contract law....it doesn't seem to be a two way document in his view.
I also never understand why a customer who believes his supplier is incompetent (or worse) doesn't simply churn to a more competent supplier at the first opportunity including when a problem doesn't get fixed "instantly" - provided they are given the opportunity of a penalty-less churn away. Why use the TIO when they can simply churn to a "real" ISP and get whatever problem they are experiencing fixed instantly?
So Exetel gain nothing at all - the customer will now hold a new grievance and complain to all and sundry about how unreasonable Exetel is.
However the "world and other ISPs" may gain something because these sorts of customers may not be so unreasonable in their dealings with suppliers in the future.....then again....that's quite possibly a forlorn hope.