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T-Mobile has scrapped plans to transfer users to newer, more expensive plans after hearing many complaints from customers.
The plan was made public two weeks ago with leaked internal documents indicating consumers would move to more expensive tiers starting in the November billing cycle unless they tapped T-Mobile to opt out. The documents show that T-Mobile’s visitor service representatives were trained to inform users. who complained: “We are not increasing the value of any of our plans; We offer you a newer package with more benefits at a different cost. “
But on a conference call (see transcript), T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said that’s no longer happening because comments from angry subscribers showed that “it’s not something our consumers are going to love. “
Sievert claimed in a leaked email to staff last week that media reports about the plan were “largely erroneous and had caused a lot of confusion among our customers. “But T-Mobile’s public relations arm had in the past shown the plan to Ars and other media outlets.
“We’ve met consumers who we believe will benefit from the additional features of our new plans,” T-Mobile told us on Oct. 13. “We talked to those consumers about our plans to migrate them to those new plans and according to the percentage. The benefits that come with the plan affect the value of the line and when the upgrade will take place. These consumers will have the option to upgrade to the new plan, or some other pricing plan available from T-Mobile or, in this case, opt out and stay on their current plan.
Leaked documents released through The Mobile Report showed that at least some consumers would upgrade to a newer plan if they had one of the following plans introduced in previous years: Simple Choice/Select Choice, Magenta, Magenta 55, ONE Plan, and Simple Choice Enterprise. . T-Mobile told Ars that not all consumers would be affected, but did not specify how many other people would have their plans switched.
Sievert’s take on what he calls “inaccurate” reporting is that automatic plan migrations were part of a check and weren’t going to the maximum number of customers. Reacting to a question from an analyst during yesterday’s earnings call, Sievert said, “By the way, it wasn’t reported very accurately. “
“We have a tendency to do a lot of checking and piloting to figure out what the right answer is,” Sievert said. “In this case, we had a mobile check to gauge visitor interest and acceptance in migration. from existing legacy pricing plans to anything that’s more priced for them and us. And we had planned to check and exercise this. And then it leaked. And it leaked out as if it were a large-scale national issue, and not you. “
Sievert went on to say that “we’ve gained a lot of feedback thanks to the context of the leak. And I think we’ve learned that this specific checking mobile is not something that our consumers are going to love. Now, precisely none [of the plan changes] have been implemented. . . We had planned it. We had planned it as a mobile check, and then we don’t do it because I think we get a lot of feedback.
Existing T-Mobile plans range from $60 to $100 per month for a single line or $5 more if you don’t get the AutoPay discount. The automatic upgrades that are now canceled would have higher costs of $5 or $10 per month of line, depending on which plan consumers had.
Despite the cancellation of this trial, it’s possible there will be more similar tests in the future, said Mike Katz, T-Mobile’s president of marketing. “I would expect to see more tests like this from our side as it has been a constant practice. the Un-carrier adventure so we can tailor it to our customers’ experience,” Katz said.
As always, T-Mobile needs to increase the amount other people pay, measured through average benefit per user (ARPU), which increases profits even when the total number of consumers doesn’t grow. Katz said T-Mobile’s new Go5G plans “actually create the platform for our core pricing strategy, which is how we can offer consumers more and more costs and consistently allow them to build our value map because they feel like they’re getting something more from T-Mobile. “
Sievert went on to talk about T-Mobile’s strategy to steer consumers away from “old rate plans. “
“While this specific mobile verification device doesn’t want to run now, we remain very interested in optimizing our existing pricing plans for IT, simplification, monetization, visitor satisfaction and retention,” he said. “So we’re going to stay there. But this specific concept is that we’re probably going to do something different. “
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