Odyssey Management — Local services in Los Angeles

Odyssey is a marketing firm in Woodland Hills CA that is contracted by AT&T (among others) to send out young adults to nearby neighborhoods who knock on doors trying to sign up residents for wireless services.

Why AT&T thinks this approach enhances its reputation or is a good revenue generator is beyond me. This is door to door selling. It's brutal on the foot soldiers, and it drives homeowners crazy most of the time.

I have a No Solicitation sign on my door for all sorts of reasons. "Is this a good time?" It's never a good time. Yet the three kids on my doorstep looked like law-abiding citizens. I took pity on them. I told them to come back at any other time than dinnertime, so, of course, they showed up the next night at dinnertime.

The leader of the group promised me an exceptional discount over my current price. I agreed to hear him out as I watched a baseball game.

90 minutes later, continuing to take leave of my senses, I got "onboarded" with AT&T. It was comical to watch the three of them struggle with their tablets and phone calls to HQ, but eventually they figured it out, and I joined AT&T for their 55+ program.

After they left, it occurred to me that this whole thing might be a giant grift, but as it turned out, despite their rookie status, they had signed me up with the actual, satisfactual AT&T.

Then the Pandora's Box opened wide.

The AT&T website is more densely packed with information than any of the other wireless carrier sites I've experienced in the past. There is a reason for this. Their various offers and promotional discounts are individually listed and take up a lot of room. These incentives, by the way, are applied only after the customer goes through the exhausting onboard process for account qualification, trade-ins and rewards card approval (that can take months to receive).

I decided to visit the corporate AT&T store locally to at least activate the two new phones that I received by mail. Then I tackled everything else that is the customer's responsibility and is handled by phone and online.

The trade-in process, the quid pro quo for getting new phones, took 45 minutes on the phone, 3-5 days to receive the return mailers and after almost 2 months, is still not completed, according to the Trade-In status page.

The AT&T Visa Rewards cards that I will use to pay off a balance on my two traded-in phones comes with the following caveat: "You are in the validation process; if approved, a reward will be sent within 8-10 weeks of your AT&T activation date. Remember you must have 60 days of active service before your reward will be qualified."

I had to take Autopay off my old carrier, or my card would have been debited for the remaining balance well in advance of receiving the cards. When I transitioned from T-Mobile to Spectrum the last time I made a change in carriers, the process was much simpler and the payoff immediate.

As I mentioned, I came back to AT&T in order to save $$$ on my monthly bill. As it turns out, I probably won't realize those savings (if any) until the second or third billing cycle (yet another delay that AT&T should not put on the customer).

We shall see if the hassle I just went through to set up with AT&T will actually be worth it. In general, AT&T should not resemble a federal agency. The process right now is unnecessarily stressful and complicated. It puts an undue burden on the customer. AT&T should reassess how they sign up new customers, especially ones who are not computer-savvy.

Here’s a better way for AT&T to handle a transition from one carrier to another. Before it plans to offer an "unbeatable" promotion, AT&T should make the entire process, from inception through activation, to the extent possible, handled in-person by in-store representatives who know their stuff, not by well-intentioned but raw teenagers going door to door.

I agreed to do this, so I have nobody but myself to blame. In the future, if anybody shows up unannounced trying to sell me whatever, I will first read the...

To whom it may concern,

I trust this message finds you well. My name is Ra Hanna, the CEO of the Junior International Championships. I am writing to express my sincere appreciation for the outstanding service provided by one of your team members, Sarah.

Recently, I had the pleasure of engaging with Sarah and her partner when they visited my residence to sell me the new Verizon 5G home internet package. From our initial interaction, Sarah displayed a commendable level of professionalism and courtesy. She adeptly explained the product in a clear and accessible manner, demonstrating a profound understanding of both its technical aspects and its broader implications in our increasingly tech-savvy society.

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Sincerely,

Ra Hanna CEO, Junior International...

Andrew knocked on my door and provided me with a clear, concise, value proposition for phone and internet services that was a better deal than what I currently had. I don't give much time to let sales reps convince me esp. during a work day. Glad I heard him out because the end result was a much better deal for equivalent service, as promised. (might be a first for me)... The kicker: He gave me his contact info and helped with the transfer every step of the way. I don't ever expect infocomm service changes to go smoothly because the party whose service you're canceling is not incentivized to make it easy. So, it was unexpectedly and massively helpful to have a knowledgeable person able to help smooth it out. PS. Imagine the utopia we'd live in if Tier 1 support had no wait time, full command of the English language, and a sales person's incentive to understand the...