Cingular's failure to establish a relationship

Well intended - Poorly executed; CRM technology backfired

My first entry to this blog will deal with genuinely misguided Customer Relationship Management enthusiasm at Cingular Wireless. This is an organization that has historically struggled to deliver adequate service and to gain any type of connection to their customer base. Today I received the following email from Cingular.

"Your current Cingular Wireless statement for account number XXXXXXXXXX is now available for viewing on the Cingular Web Site at https://myaccount.cingular.com. If you are enrolled in automatic bill payment by credit card or bank draft, please do not remit payment.

We encourage you to visit our Web site often to view monthly statements, make payments, and to shop for new product and service offerings.

Thank you for allowing Cingular Wireless to serve your communication needs.

Sincerely,

Cingular Wireless"

On first glance a great little service to remind customers to view their statement online and to get an opportunity to try a little upselling. When I tried to log in however, I discovered that Cingular must have me registered with a funky user ID and password because none of my "general purpose" combinations worked. No problem...or so I thought....their web site provides a link entitled.."Have you forgotten your Cingular ID" or "Have you forgotten your Cingular password". Both a first clue that this probably happens to quite a few customers.

Recommendation 1:When you sign up customers and expect them to return to your web site to sign in, always use their email address as the ID. People will generally remember it.

I followed the link that was going to help me recover my user ID...at this point only because I'm curious. The next screen asks for my cellular phone number. Great idea since it's unique and tied to my person. Cingular then asks me for my account number. My first thought was "heck if I know" until I discovered that my account number was merged into the email they sent me. If it's already in the email, I wondered why they would make me enter it again. I grow even more hesitant when I am asked for the last 4 digits of my social security number. Reluctantly I plug them in. The last field ends up being the deal breaker. I need to enter my password to recover my user ID. Since I don't remember the ID the company generated for me why would I remember the automatically generated password? I abandon the process.


Recommendation 2:When inviting customers back into secure areas of your web site, make the process of recovering user IDs and passwords as easy as possible. If the company had simply asked me for my email address or cellular phone number, both which can be validated as being tied to my account, sent me the password (with a link to change it) as well as a direct link to the information they wanted me to see, they'd have another successful customer connection. Instead I am unsubscribing from all email communication...unless that requires a user ID of course.

This interaction prompted me to rethink my cellular rate plan and consider a switch to another plan with the same carrier. When I called I was told by a very rushed customer service agent that obviously wanted to get off the phone and on to the next call that she'd have to charge me an additional one time fee as well as start my committed plan period from anew even though I was planning to upgrade to a more expensive plan.

Clearly this company failed to even establish a relationship with me, let alone manage it. How nice that as of November 2003 cellular phone numbers will become transferrable among cellular carriers. Clearly a fact that hasn't yet affected Cingular's Customer Relationship Management program.