#Movistar – The Only Boss You Need to Pay Attention To

January 12, 2015 • Luis Suarez • elsua, Enterprise2.0, General Interest, Open Business, Open Leadership

Here I am, once again, incredibly frustrated and very irritated I got disconnected from the Internet last week Friday, as I blew up my monthly data allowance on my mobile phone for the zillionth time over the course of last few weeks. I got a bit tired of asking friends to use their wifi again and again, so I could continue with my day to day work routines, never mind as well embarrassing myself showing up at a local coffee shop time and time again while the monthly bill keeps getting more and more expensive with all of the additional beverages. Oh well, one more week to go… Indeed, one more week to go before Movistar finally shares some mercy upon myself and decides to treat this customer with some decency by hooking up both my landline and ADSL connection after nearly 2.5 months of much anticipated wait. I just can’t count the days anymore…

Indeed, I just can’t count the days after having endured such level of sheer incompetence and utterly appalling customer service while earlier on today I had a chance to reflect and muse on a conversation I had with a very good friend of mine, back at the beginning of 2014, as I was just getting started with my new adventure as an independent advisor around Social Business and Digital Transformation where we talked, rather extensively, about what it is like being a freelancer in today’s more complex than ever working environment.

I trust his judgement quite a bit, since he has been a freelancer himself in the IT industry for over 35 years and still going strong, so when we, finally, had a chance to talk through Skype, I knew it was going to be a rather intense, massively entertaining, hugely enlightening and incredibly helpful learning experience. And, boy, it surely was! We talked about lots of things about what to expect and what not, about what may work and what may not. We talked extensively of what it is like living in this brave new world of uncertainty and make the most out of it, but if there was a single point of discussion I truly cherished (even to today) as one of my key learning highlights from 2014 was the subject of who my new boss would be from there onwards, now I was no longer a salaried employee at a large big corporation.

We had a good laugh when, as we got started with that conversation, I mentioned to him how in my last project with my former employer at one point I had up to 11 different management lines before I could reach out to the top, that is, the CEO of the company. And of those 11 different bosses I often found myself having to report to several chains of command to keep them in the loop of what I was doing for my day to day work. Never mind how things would have been much much different if they themselves would have been working out loud, narrating their work (just as I was!), instead of being stuck in their own email Inboxes. Oh well, that’s a story for another blog post coming up on the incredibly inspiring and rather refreshing egalitarian power of social networking tools in helping knowledge workers ignore the hierarchy, flatten the organisation in order to get work done more effectively.

The thing is this good friend of mine mentioned how, despite the uncertainty that will be now part of my daily life, plenty of things will become a lot simpler in terms of figuring out who my new boss may well be from there onwards. The only one I would need to pay attention to. A surprising and rather refreshing change even, because, in his words, my new boss as a freelancer and independent advisor is no longer my organisation, whatever that may well be, as the traditional hierarchy disappears into thin air since that artificial construct is no longer needed, nor relevant. My new boss is not going to be my fellow peers / colleagues / social networks or what not, not even perhaps the so-called influencers in the market, vendors, analysts, business partners and whatever other groupings, but, eventually, and right to the heart of the matter, my boss would be the one and only to care for and delight to no end: my customer(s).

Wise words, indeed. Who would have thought about that, right? I mean, if you go out there and ask a few people to tell you who their boss is I bet “My customer(s)” is probably going to be the very last answer you are most likely going to hear. And yet it’s the only one that we should be caring about. The only one that matters. The one we all keep coming back to work for every morning doing what we love doing: serving our clients with a delightful experience and, of course, in a timely manner.

Right at that moment, while we were still conversing and enjoying very much the ongoing dialogue, I realised that sentiment of my customer(s) as my new boss(es) will become my new mantra ever since I went independent and I have never gone back. As a result, and almost after a year going by, I have had the enormous privilege and true honour of having worked with some pretty amazing and rather smart clients who throughout our interactions in 2014 (and beginning of this year already!) have helped me grow not only in a professional level, but also on a personal level. Who knew?

Who knew that bosses / managers could have that effect on you? Who knew that perhaps in the traditional big corporate world we may have had the wrong end of the stick all along? I mean, how many of you folks out there would consider your immediate boss today your customer and not the individual you are directly, or indirectly, reporting to? I am certain not many. The thing is that you may be thinking that since you don’t have an external job to focus on, specially if you are not in sales or marketing, you really don’t have any customers to worry about, as you may be working in internal projects. But how about if we got it all wrong right from the beginning? You see? We are all providing a service, whether internal and / or external, and as service providers everyone that we are serving then becomes our customer and therefore our new boss. Imagine if we could all get to ignore everything else and just focus on the customer as your new manager.

Well, here I am thinking what that may have been like over the course of the last 2.5 months when I first requested a service from Movistar where I wanted to transfer my already existing landline and ADSL I got contracted with them and move it to my new home place, 10 minutes away from the old one. As a service provider you would expect they would go the extra mile for their new boss to provide him with a delightful experience, don’t you think? Yet, apparently, they have been looking elsewhere, inwards, stuck in their paperwork, without resources, providing everything but a delightful client experience. More of a nightmare, if I may add. And perhaps that’s been part my fault as well for not stressing out deep enough the impact I have been suffering from their disservice, as I have no longer been able to carry on with my day to day knowledge Web work activities, losing several opportunities already of incoming revenue in the last two months and still counting…

Last week Friday I cancelled one of the many services I had contracted with Movistar for a good few years. Perhaps that’s how I should have made myself heard right from the start vs. patiently awaiting for them to look outside vs. inwards. It won’t be the last one. Currently, I am compiling the various different services I have got contracted with them and over the course of the next few days / weeks / months I will be terminating each and every one of them. I guess I will be firing them all away! I have been saying for a good while now how employee disengagement is a rather serious business problem to tackle in today’s corporate world. Mostly induced by disengaged managers, if you look deep enough into it beyond the initial marketing hype currently going on.

So when your loyal customer, i.e. your new boss, actively disengages away from you by cancelling service after service, due to your rather poor and devastating skills about proper customer service, I guess it’s time now for you to figure out what’s happening, look around, go outside, engage in a meaningful conversation where you can work harder to solve their business problem(s) and see how you may be able, perhaps, to re-engage them back. If ever. If you still care, that is.

The clock is ticking… It has been already for a good few weeks and this customer, yours truly, is just about to have enough of being your boss really, my dear Movistar. Thus, what do you think? Time for us to depart ways and move on? Well, it’s up to you… Like I said, the clock is ticking and I just might be waiting for your response to re-engage me back. You know what needs to be done and, this time around, in case you may not have noticed it, there is a deadline.

Friday, January 16th, 2015.

Written by Luis Suarez

Chief Emergineer and People Enabler. A well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business; and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua or Google Plus.

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#Movistar – The Cost of Lying to Your Customers

January 8, 2015 • Luis Suarez • Collaboration, Communities, elsua, Enterprise2.0, General Interest, Learning, Open Business, Open Leadership

Today is, officially, my first day at work for 2015 after the Christmas holidays. I am writing officially on purpose, because after 61 days I am still waiting for Movistar (That Queen Between that always wants to get paid, but fails to deliver on customer service big time!) to come by my new place and install both the landline and the ADSL connection, so I can resume my knowledge Web work I have been forced to put into a halt for over 2 months now. Latest news I have from the fire extinguishing community management team at Movister_es on Twitter is that they will finally make an appearance (or so I am hoping!) on January 16th. Yet no-one from the technical team has contacted me to confirm that appointment. Instead, they seem to have mastered the skill of lying to this customer left and right throughout all of that time to the point where, at long last, it will have a price to pay: my loyalty.

Or, perhaps, even worse, my trust. After all, how can I ever possibly trust my local telco / ISP again for helping me carry on with my job as an independent freelancer (autónomo, in Spain), working remotely from his home office, when they have locked me down for all of this time without a single apology or concern about the huge impact they have incurred upon this family where I am the solely source of income at the moment. And, instead, they take the route of lying day in day out as it is their business as usual modus operandi. It’s always been.

From 5 to 20 days to get it all sorted out, initially, to another 5 to 20 days to finally get it done and dealt with, to December 29th, to now January 16th (Perhaps?), all along I have been told they would make it all happen relatively fast. Yet, 61 days later I am still waiting… But that’s not the worst bit of it all, because earlier by mid-November last year I got a phone call (One of the many pointless interactions I have had so far!) from a rather helpful and supportive lady telling me they have acknowledged the request to transfer the phone / ADSL line and that it will be taking place by mid-January.

Yes, MID-JANUARY 2015!! So why bother with all the lying to this loyal, faithful 11 year long customer over the course of weeks through regular Twitter Mentions & DMs, phone calls, SMS messages and what not if right along from the start *you* knew exactly when it will all be addressed and fixed and since it was going to take over 2.5 months of rage, angst, impatience and unsettling unhappiness all around for yours truly I guess it was better to lie to this customer in order to tame the frustration. Bollocks!

Let me tell you something, my dear Movistar, if you keep claiming you happen to be a people to people business, i.e. a successful Social Business, one who cares about their clients and their needs, about your own employees and their well being, one who aims at changing the landscape of B2C (if there ever was such a thing like that!), one who simply cares, there is one little thing you may want to add to your vocabulary from now onwards: never lie to your customers. Be willing to engage in a two-way, meaningful, open, transparent conversation where you are willing to acknowledge the shortcomings of your already appalling customer service, so that you might be able to spark that sentiment of empathy you now have long lost from yours truly, because you just weren’t ready to face the reality: you are everything BUT a social business. Sad state of things, really, if you can’t handle the simple fundamentals of what it is like being an Open Business through openness, trust and authenticity.

Yes, it’s going to take me about 2.5 months to get back on track and be connected to the Internet, once again, thanks to you, Movistar. In the mean time, I can tell you I have gone through some rather interesting and colourful times that will make me remember you not very fondly for a long while, but, right now, there is just something out there for you to worry about quite a bit more: my trust in you and your services, because if you cared about your customers and keep aiming at building one’s trust in you, I can now confirm you have totally lost mine and it will take you a substantial amount of time AND effort to repair it.

I know for sure though you won’t even think a single time in investing your always lacking resources. Why should you, right? After all, who am I? I am just A customer. One of the many millions you keep saying you are serving to the point of delight, but fail quite remarkably at it time and time again by ignoring their own needs and wants, just because you feel we should be obliged to you for offering the service of being connected to the Internet. According to you, it should be our privilege to be your customer, like we owe it to you, but, alas, you know what?, at this point in time, that trust and loyalty from yours truly you have accumulated over the course of over a decade is now lost and long gone forever to the point where you will now become a primer example of what a so-called social business should not be doing at all. You are the perfect case of the anti-social business mindset. Your weakness? Not the lack of resources, nor the lack of customer service skills and know-how while trying to fix your customers’ problems, but something much more fundamental and key to every single Open Business: never *ever* lie to your customers.

You know, they will eventually find out. I just did.

Written by Luis Suarez

Chief Emergineer and People Enabler. A well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business; and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua or Google Plus.

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#Movistar Killed the Web Star

December 31, 2014 • Luis Suarez • Enterprise2.0, Freelancing, General Interest, Open Business, Open Leadership

Imagine if all of a sudden you decide to embark on an experiment where you try to figure out what it would be like to live without access to the Internet over a certain period of time not only for your day to day work, but also for your personal life. Complete switch-off from everything online. Would you be able to do it? And, if so, for how long? Imagine if that experiment then turns out to be, eventually, the worst of nightmares as it becomes your new reality and for much longer than you anticipated and your work that depends on it (as a knowledge (Web) worker) goes into an unpleasant halt you just can’t get out of any time soon. Would you be able to hold it for any much longer? Well, don’t imagine, that’s the story I’ve been going through myself in the last few weeks as I got to experience, first hand, and in full force, how Movistar killed the Web Star.

There are times where one’s patience starts to run out. You know, you try really hard to be patient, you always aim for doing your very best at it, but you still run out of it nevertheless no matter what. Well, mine just did. And it is not pretty. Reality kicks in. After 52 days (Yes! 52 days exactly today!) of waiting for my local telco / ISP provider, Movistar (Telefónica), to, finally, get their act together and transfer the old existing landline and ADSL connection to my new home place in another town I can now confirm how Movistar itself treats over 10 years of customer loyalty: really sorry, but it looks like you are pretty much screwed and we just can’t care less for you nor your working needs. Tough luck.

See? That’s what Queen Betweens do. Or, basically, what single monopolies tend to do over the course of time: squeeze their customers to no end charging them through the roof for their own profit for services you can’t use fully by constantly ignoring your needs while providing you with everything but a delightful experience. More of a horrifying experience, if I may add. Why? Because they can. Because they can’t care less about who you are, what you do, what your needs and wants may well be or what the potential consequences of their exponential incompetence at failing to provide what they themselves call “good” customer service may well be. They don’t. They can’t. They won’t. Ever. 52 days and counting…

This is the story of a 10 year long loyal customer of a local, nationwide, telco provider who has had just about enough of being treated like utter crap, mostly because, you know, I am just A customer. Like any other customer. So who cares, right? I am just incredibly easy to ignore and delight accordingly, apparently. Remember those good old times from over the course of last 2 to 3 years when plenty of businesses have been pouring down our throats their lovely marketing messages about how we are living in a hyper connected, always-on, digital mobile world where businesses can now provide individualised and incredibly customised excelling experiences to clients based on their needs and wants? Well, let me tell you something: what a bunch of bollocks! At least, for Movistar, as it’s taken them over 50 days (and still counting!) to accommodate the needs of one of their many customers. And the answer I keep getting back is that the issues will be sorted out really soon. 52 days later, *nothing* has happened other than being charged over 250€ for a set of services I just don’t have. Not even a single “We’re sorry for the inconvenience” coming through!

The thing is that I am not A customer. I mean, if I were a client who may not have had an urging need to use the Web and the telephone as his primary means of income and revenue, I would probably be ok without the phone nor the Internet for nearly 2 months. The thing though is that I *am* a knowledge Web worker and, as such, I pretty much *live* on the Web. I do have a constant need to be hyper connected, always online, so I can carry out work with clients, wherever and whenever they may well be, while collaborating and sharing our knowledge together over the (Social) Web. Yet, I can’t, because Movistar, apparently, after 10 years of being loyal to them, still doesn’t know me, nor my needs or requirements to conduct knowledge Web work. Yes, apparently, 10 years aren’t enough to get to know who your customers really are. Troubling, really. And frustrating to no end!

The end result? Me losing customers (and revenue!!) every single day gone by so far! With the move to the new home, and as some kind of cruel punishment by Movistar inflicted upon myself for wanting to start a new life (You can probably sense now how frustrating things can get when you are excited about moving to a new home, but yet you can’t work at it as I’ve done over the last 12 years as a remote worker!), I have lost the opportunity to constantly keep working on the pipeline for 2015 for new work, which was the original plan for this month, December, for yours truly. I have also lost the opportunity to continue working with current clients because we just can’t hold up any kind of knowledge work like collaborating remotely through digital tools, video conferencing, conference calls, etc. etc. Everything is on a stand still, except for paying bills, of course. Even those to Movistar itself for a service they keep failing to provide across for nearly two months now.

The thing is that in terms of remote customer support through Twitter, SMS messages, phone calls and what not, the client experience has been incredibly delightful. The fire extinguishing activities keep mounting up by the day and the folks behind @Movistar_es keep doing a good job in taming and containing my patience from turning into rage, although lately, the responses and keeping me up in the loop is starting to fall behind, probably because they are getting just as tired and frustrated as I am right now as we speak for not seeing the issues getting sorted out any time soon. Bless them for the superb piece of work they are doing in camouflaging the utterly crappy service Movistar is providing to this customer at the moment. Bless them for totally understanding my problem, or so they tell me, of not being connected and losing revenue day in day out, and doing their best, which, apparently, hasn’t resulted in much happening anyway, as I am still without a landline nor ADSL, after a few weeks gone by, but I am still paying for that lack of service. Oh, the many joys of the Community Management Team. See why that whole system is broken? Bless them for trying though, they have just been eaten alive by the system along with yours truly.

It all started on November 7th, 2014, when I requested the transfer of the landline and ADSL to my new home place and I was told the whole process would take between 5 to 20 days. I told myself, perfect timing, as I will be travelling for the remainder of November to 3 different countries to do work for clients, and upon my return it would all be installed and ready for me to carry on with my job. Wishful thinking. On the same week I got back I got a phone call from one of the local technicians telling me that the place where I now live doesn’t have any more free physical telephone line connections, so they would need to put a new box, which may require another 5 to 20 days for it to be processed. Panic mode kicks in as December starts and I can’t do any work any more from my home office.

Yes, I know, I have been stealing the wi-fi at friends’ homes for pretty much any kind of urgent work, but it’s been incredibly embarrassing to admit to them how much money I get to spend for a service I’m not getting while I’m using theirs. Frustrating to no end that here we are, last day of 2014, and we still have got these connectivity issues in a more hyper connected and always-on world that ever. But is it really? Apparently, it isn’t!

Weeks go by and I get another phone call where I am advised that things are going to be a bit tough because to get a new box is going to be challenging as they are no longer investing in copper, by in fibre (which will take still a few more months to come where I currently live, so not a choice), and the whole process of funding, just for that box, would need to kick in. There aren’t any guarantees, I got told and at that point the first glimpses of desperation and rage kick in as I keep telling them they just can’t cut me off the Internet grid, because of a box. What am I supposed to do with my job as a knowledge (Web) worker?!?!?! Please! Can we get a sense of reality kicking in on the kind of impact such decision would be having not only upon myself, but the family I’m trying really hard to sustain without falling apart into pieces?

Apparently, not! A few days more go by and I got another phone call where I’m told they finally got the confirmation the box funding went through, the request was processed and it’s just a matter of a day or two for a local technician to come along, install it all, and we are back in track. No, we aren’t. I was advised that on December 29th, the local technician would be coming along and do the magic. Alas, no magic happened, I am afraid, only a steady increase of being ticked off about what’s happening. I just can’t believe it. I’m still disconnected and not a chance to know when exactly it would all be fixed, specially, during this Festive Season where everything seems to go on a pause till after January 7th. My goodness! Can I wait for another 2 to 3 weeks?!?!?! No, I can’t! I need to start working again and pronto!

But you have got the 3G / 4G on your mobile plan, right? Yes, I do, but that’s not been very helpful, either, as I currently have got a 6GB quota allowance per month that, given the kind of work I do, I pretty much basically burn it all out in about 2 to 3 days and, once again, here I am, back to stealing friends’ wifi connections at their own homes. The level of embarrassment and apologising keeps increasing by the minute. Desperation increases a notch or two when you realise it may well be about mid-January next year when it all may be fixed, if at all (as I was wrongly? advised on another phone call not long ago, where I thought it would be mid-December… No, mid-January, apparently).

Unreal! You can now see why I have pretty much run out of patience already, right? Well, it gets much worse! Because the mobile telco is the same ISP that’s supposed to fix the issues (i.e. Movistar) and I am only getting charged more and more money by extending the mobile quota of data. But “what about public wi-fi spaces where you live in the south of Gran Canaria that you could use?”, you may be wondering, right? Well, once again, no good news, I am afraid, as Wi-Fi Finder tells me there aren’t any around me within a close distance and I can only go into a hotel to pay for a daily fee speeds that would take me back to the late 90s. Yes, I’ve tried it already and it’s not even a mild option to consider.

“Of course, you know, that happens to you because you live in paradise island and people are on holidays over there!!!”, you may be thinking as well right? Really? Here we are, once again, coming close to 2015 and we still think that way? Let me share with you all the incredibly huge missed opportunity by that same telco / ISP provider AND the various local government organisms AND perhaps also the European Union in their so-called efforts to digitised Europe on what they are missing by not working the magic of free public wifi spaces across the board. Go back 10 to 15 years ago, when you use to go on holidays to sunny paradise islands in the middle of nowhere. How did you get in touch with your family and loved ones back then? A long distance phone call, reverse charge, perhaps? A postcard? Complete silence till you got back?

What do you do nowadays when you go on holidays? How do you keep up with your loved ones and share with them what a wonderful holiday you are having and find out how they are doing as well instead? I bet it’s not a phone call, or a postcard, or just complete silence. I bet it’s all pictures, video clips, snippets you feel inspired to create and then share them across the Web by costing you an arm and a leg in hugely expensive roaming charges or countless hours of hunting down a decent Internet connection somewhere. Over the weekend, as an example, I was eating lunch at a restaurant when a guest, an older lady, asked the owner whether he had free wifi or not and when he said he didn’t she humphed and left the place (lost another customer right there!) reminding me, once again, about the huge opportunity of not thinking that the Web should start to become as pervasive as electricity is nowadays… Even a right!

No, it’s probably better to remain a monopoly by some telco providers as I am currently stuck in this situation. Unless Movistar transfers that phone line I won’t be connected through ADSL / wifi any time soon. I can’t go to any other telco providers as they hold the physical line work themselves. I can’t go to Internet satellite providers as they are even pricier and for rather poor connectivity coming along. I just can’t live on 3G / 4G unless I drastically change my working habits, or perhaps even find another kind of job, which has crossed my mind over the course of last few days as I keep contemplating Plan B & C that I have written about in a former blog post. See? This is how screwed up the whole situation is that I have to contemplate the prospect of changing my entire career and look for other job opportunities where being connected is not very much needed, but just a nice-have thing to have for when you come back home from work. And all of that due to the sheer incompetence of a telco / ISP that just doesn’t care much about the potential impact of their non-service to their customers even though they are paying loads of money for services they are just not using!

That’s the main reason why I have been offline for vast majority of the time since I shared my previous blog post and while I thought I would be coming back to the social grid shortly, it looks like it’s not going to happen any time soon. Even worse, I don’t think I’d ever get a single response to this blog post, never mind getting the issues sorted out in a timely manner (Remember, 52 days and still counting…). It probably even won’t be noticed, because, you know, after 10 years of being their customer, they just don’t know me much. They don’t seem to have enough data of myself, throughout all of this time, to make an educated decision of fixing the issues as soon as possible, as they have now screwed this customer for good.

A couple of years ago I blogged on how Social Business is all about People to People Business and, ironically, featuring Movistar themselves as a success story. Oh, my goodness!, how naïve I was back then! I guess I can now withdraw those words from here onwards and confirm, sadly, that Movistar is everything but a people to people business. It’s more of a Queen Between with an urging need to die a slow and painful death pretty soon IF they keep on working this hard to disservice their loyal customers! Yes, I’m an optimist and I know there is hope, but will they, finally, get their act together and help me before I move on? The clock is ticking… Time is the new currency. They have already lost 52 days and counting …

Written by Luis Suarez

Chief Emergineer and People Enabler. A well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business; and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua or Google Plus.

[PS. If you happen to have read this article, currently live in Playa del Inglés, Gran Canaria, and can offer a coworking space with a decent Internet connection where I can start working right away or if you think you can help out with my current connectivity issues, please do get in touch. I would love to talk with you!]

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