My hats off to Shaw - An Amazing PR Move!

So Shaw Communications has just proven that they have some damn good PR people who clearly have a seat at the management table (this goes to show you how critical it is to have your PR people truly integrated with operations and listening to what they have to say during a crisis).

Shaw has recently announced that it will not implement usage-based billing and that it is reaching out to its customers to find out what they want.

Iain Grant, a technology analyst with SeaBoard Group, is quoted in the linked story above as saying the move is... "extraordinary. We've got a cable company that says it wants to talk and listen to its customers." 

Now, I don't know a lot about Shaw as they service the West Coast of Canada and I'm on the East, and so I deal with Rogers and Bell. But I'll say this, Shaw reacted perfectly to all this from a PR perspective. 

While my earlier suggestion was that these companies apologies for trying to push UBB through, we all know they weren't going to do that. So Shaw did the next best thing, removed the caps and said that it wants to hear from its customers from here on in before making significant changes to its billing models for services (and is implementing a process to do that). 

Which is as close to an apology as you are going to get and in some ways it's even better, because it holds promise and hope that future debacles can be avoided.  

Shame on Bell and Rogers for doing absolutely nothing on the PR front other than stick to their guns and hold that UBB makes sense (yes selling one cent per gig for $1.50 a gig makes total sense). And shame on the CRTC for doing nothing other than 'review' UBB after having their arm twisted behind their back by the Prime Minister of Canada. 

On a side note and I can't verify this, but I was told by a few friends today that the rumor is that on the West Coast there was a five hour wait to cancel services with Shaw. Don't know if it's true or not, but it warms the heart to see Canadians taking action with the only thing that really matters - their wallet - and so I hope it was. 

I know that usually when you try to cancel with Rogers they keep you on the line for a good 30 minutes trying to do everything they can to keep your business. When I canceled with Rogers the other day they couldn't wait to get me off the line (perhaps they were trying to keep their head above water and deal with an influx of customers canceling services, who knows). 

On a further side note, I recently reviewed my mother's Bell bills and found out that they had been charging her for a long distance package that she never signed up for or used for the past four years. It appeared on the bill as 'network charges'. When I ripped in to them over this their response was 'We send you a bill every month, customers are responsible for inquiring about charges that shouldn't be there."

Are you joking me? How is a senior citizen suppose to know that 'network charges' is really a 'long distance package'. Even I thought it was one of those default charges that you simply have to pay like 9-1-1 or touch-tone. Despite not having a single LD charge on her bill for the past four years (not on the Bell network anyway) they simply held to the line that they aren't responsible and that customers are responsible for understanding the services they are being billed for.  Wow, swindling seniors is now common practice?

It was a real eye opener for me... Gen-x'ers make sure you are helping your Baby Boomer parents out with the tech / telecom related bills (because if you don't there's a good chance their service provider will slip in little extra charges that they won't even notice).

So while Shaw is ramping up repairing relations with its customers, Bell and Rogers are going in the opposite direction. If I had to guess, Bell and Rogers are reacting to market variables based on sales logic and Shaw seems to be reacting based on PR logic (which should be one in the same but rarely is). We'll see who comes out ahead in the end... my money is on Shaw. Good PR almost always wins in the long run (provided it is backed up by companies towing the line and actually doing what they say). 

Right now all this is just the tip of the ice burg. Baby boomers aren't really even a part of the uprising yet. My mom for instance absolutely must watch the local news (and so would never cancel her cable tv). However, even the local news is available on the internet (I watch CTV Ottawa online every night) ... and with the right media server she will one day be able to watch the news on her TV (but streaming it from the internet, not accessing it via cable tv). 

When that becomes easy to do (you can do it now, but it's a tad complicated) even the baby boomers will join in the revolution.  

Shaw has done the only thing a smart company can... instead of fighting the revolution, it's getting on the side of those who will be fueling the revolution, their own customers! 

Kudos to Shaw and hats off to their PR folks!