Customer suggestion yields 'formal and legalistic' response from IP lawyer
An AT&T lawyer said thanks, but no thanks, when a customer emailed his service suggestions.
The response from an intellectual property lawyer brought online criticism and an admission from the company’s chairman that the telecom “blew it,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
The customer, Alfred Valrie of El Sereno, told a Los Angeles Times columnist that he emailed AT&T to suggest the company allow unlimited data for DSL customers. Valrie also wrote that the company should “bring back text messaging plans like 1,000 messages for $10 or create a new plan like 500 messages for $7.”
The company’s chief IP counsel, Thomas Restaino, thanked Valrie for being a lifelong customer, then firmly declined to consider the suggestion. “AT&T has a policy of not entertaining unsolicited offers to adopt, analyze, develop, license or purchase third-party intellectual property … from members of the general public,” he wrote. “Therefore, we respectfully decline to consider your suggestion.”
AT&T spokeswoman Georgia Taylor told the Los Angeles Times that the company’s responses to customer suggestions “have been a bit formal and legalistic,” but it had to protect itself. In the past, she said, customers have sent unsolicited ideas, accused the company of stealing the ideas, and threatened legal action.
AT&T chairman Randall Stephenson took a different tack following the online criticism, saying the company “fumbled a response” to Valrie. “We blew it, plain and simple,” Stephenson told the Los Angeles Times in a letter. “It’s something I’ve already corrected.”
