Opinion: August 2009 Archives

1. A new AT&T account for the iPhones;
2. The old account was cancelled;
3. The minutes were left behind.

Unhappy with losing the minutes, I called and learned that the old account was a business account and the new one was personal. Regardless, I argued, I should be able to keep my minutes. without any hesitation, the lovely gal on the line told me that she could give me 1000, but she'd have to ask her manager about more. She text messages her manager (I kid you not) and the result is that we got 4000 of the minutes restored. Better than zero, and there's more. 

Because of the large number of accumulated minutes, I wasn't paying much attention to the minutes on the phone. Good thing I did, though, because the counter was reading low near the end of the month. I knew that we had called everyone we knew on these new gadgets, and that I was using it for most of my business activities, so I figured that I needed a plan with more minutes. I changed to the 1400 minute plan with minutes to spare, and forgot about it. I got the bill, and it claimed that I had gone over by ~150 minutes! The same call got the charges refunded.

I must say that the experience was pleasant and very rewarding, for me, anyway, and AT&T gets a thumbs up from me.

The upshot for mailers is that the hours during which a mailer may enter mail into the system have been reduced at the end of the day, which is the exact opposite of what would be more efficient for the mailers themselves. Mailers now must push their production back a day in order to meet the new, shorter insertion windows. At a time when the post office is struggling to remain relevant, effectively adding a day to the time to deliver mail is absurd.

The Post Office is not new to regulations that are convenient to themselves and detrimental to the customer. Recently, they changed the rules about how booklets were to be tabbed. Previously, tabs (tape circles that close the open edge) along the open long edge of the booklet were sufficient, but now, the booklets must have tabs on all three open sides. This triples the processing time and expense for mailers, since most mailers will send the piece through the tabber three times rather than invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in new tabbing equipment.

If the US Government wants to stimulate the economy, how about taking a look at the Post Office and how it seems to be working to make themselves the least convenient, least reliable, and least accommodating service available. No wonder email marketing is kicking the Post Office's behind.