I heard about AT&T’s new tech support service ConnecTech last week and thought it was a lost cause. Hoping to make money in home-based tech support seems tricky. I did it for a few years in the late nineties and any sort of flat rate service plan is likely to be a losing proposition. There is a plethora of hardware configs to deal with and many old ladies that love to chit chat with their new visitors. If you aren’t charging hourly and, ideally, selling and supporting your own hardware, you could be in for tough times financially.
So, how could this be a great move for AT&T? The secret lies in wghst they are trying to sell. Unlike Best Buy’s Geek Squad, ConnecTech doesn’t need to make money off the service or even upselling hardware. AT&T is hoping ConnecTech customers will turn into AT&T monthly customers. Monthly services bring AT&T fat and scalable profits, neither of which ConnecTech will bring on it’s own.
Paying $69 dollars for computer and wifi configuration in your home is a bargain for nontechy people or those on a time crunch, but paying $200/month for your Internet/phone/cable for the rest of your tech-dependent life is where the real money is.
on Mar 26th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
AT&T ConnecTech didn’t even get to my home. After an issue getting the first ticket submitted and the second ticket getting canceled, I called my television manufacturer again and had them redirect my business to another company. Beyond ConnecTech “requiring” me to send documents to them saying the manufacturer required it (which was a lie – they may have wanted it, but Samsung didn’t require it), the absolute nature of these people was ridiculous. Their phone demeanor was horrible (I wasn’t a walk in the park). I could tell as they told me to feel free to get another servicing company that they really didn’t think I was anything but 1 person – they are AT&T and I’m just some small insignificant customer. It felt like my business did not matter because more would be sent their way.
What their notes say and what really took place didn’t sync up. They told me to go ahead and find another person to take care of my television. I was told “I wouldn’t understand” certain things and the last person on the phone insinuated I was an idiot and my husband was a liar. From my experience, no followup takes place on anything. After initiation of the ticket, everything falls on the customer from gathering all documentation (even though the last person I spoke with said they could actually make calls and not have to have the documents they were asking me for). All phone followups are left on the customer – if you have to fax them anything, call twice for confirmation days before their cut off date. If you have a part being mailed to you – call them multiple times to check on the status. Do NOT forget one call or you’ll have a canceled ticket and be told to start over.
All we want is our television fixed while its still under warranty – and we end up getting the biggest hassle in the history of our needing a repair person.