Yesterday, Verizon Wireless got a taste of its own technology. It had announced [duh] that in January it would impose a $2 fee for customers who paid by phone or through its website. The web and mobile responded. Here is my post published by financial-information powerhouse Motley Fool. Within 24 hours, Verizon announced it was tossing that whole inane idea.
Why did the push-back have such mass and passion? We cut slack for organizations and individuals which need to get their arms around whatever. That whatever ranges from the new kind of consumer [value conscious] to how technology has empowered everyone to become an effective lobbyist.
We didn't cut slack for Verizon Wireless because it had plenty of time to learn from the horrific public-relations which Bank of America set in motion when it announced a $5 monthly fee [total = $60 a year] for use of its debit card outside its own ATM system. Eventually, it too eliminated that revenue-making tactic but not soon enough to become a case study about what not to do when 1) your industry is under attack, and 2) there's a global economic downturn.
Given the genius of public relations strategists, sure Verizon Wireless can bounce back. After all, until its 3 outages for data in December, it has been the premier brand in the smartphone niche for reliability. But a comeback demands an internal paradigm shift: Verizon Wireless must focus on the pain points of customers. At the top of the list is money.
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