Why I'm Firing my Virgin Mobile Phone

I have a phone with Virgin Mobile - but I won't at the end of the month. This is because I am firing them. Without going into details, they have managed to make me so angry I am seriously considering an iPhone. And I've been a customer of theirs for 4 years. Now, if I remove myself from this and look impartially at Virgin Mobile, I have to say it is such a poorly thought out strategy to turn off customers through poor customer service, especially when your biggest competitor only has to release a slightly new version of their product to get world-wide press. When a competitor has you over a barrel like that, you need to be twice as good. When you're only half as good, you are arrogantly announcing that you just don't need the money or the customers.The first job any client with a monster competitor should be working at is retention. This is best done by considering what it is your competition does that you can't, but also what you do that they can't. In this case, iPhone completely owns users who want to go online. Virgin's strength is (or should be) easy month-to-month, no contract billing. That billing plan is a strength that should be touted, and certainly any problem should be addressed quickly - before, say, a customer posts about their lack of attention to service on their blog. So I look forward to talking to all of you other iPhone converts!

About the Author: Eric Reid

I am the Social Media Services Manager for Off Madison Ave. I've been with the company since 2006, when I was hired to do SEO, and link building in particular. When social networking sites started cropping up, at first I started using them to create backlinks - but they weren't the best for that, given all of the "nofollow" attributes. However, I did see the potential for all of the direct referral traffic they represent. Since then I've been actively pursuing both tactics for clients: Links that can help them for search, and social postings that get them involved in the conversation. It's about the coolest job you could ever get. ;)

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