After Part 1 of this essay outlined how the dim bulbs at AT&T allowed for such a gaping disconnect between the heights of branding and the depths of its service, I promised to dedicate Part 2 to how it could have approached its brand differently.
So here's my stab at how the former-CEO could have done it:
MEMO
Date: August 12, 2005
From: Edward E. Whitacre Jr.
To: ALL EMPLOYEES
Re: Our New AT&T Brand
Today, we are launching the new AT&T.
Technology has changed how our customers use telecom services: they're communicating in more ways, more often, and in search of more information than ever before. The 'phone' is less of a tool than a symbol, and for some people, it's nothing more than a screen icon on a device that has another name.
The companies that provide services in this increasingly complex and competitive world have also changed. Some new ones didn’t exist a few years ago. Others have been around for quite some time, but are different today. New players will surely follow, arising from all sides of our industry, from technology and products, to services and support.
Telephony was considered a utility for generations of consumers. Like turning on the lights, or heating a home, people depended on using the telephone whenever they wanted, without ever having to understand how it worked. Phones were ubiquitous, even if they were tethered to lines and wires: when you picked one up, it worked, and there was always an operator available to help make it so.
That's a far cry from our world today, isn't it? Different technologies, services, and uses make the simplicity of 'picking up a phone' sound like we're talking about flicking a buggy whip, or playing an LP record.
Well, AT&T literally invented this industry, and we're going to lead it again.
AT&T IS the most storied, respected icon in telephony. But our name is just a word, our logo only a symbol. It is up to each of us to make our brand relevant to today's marketplace.
Together, we can make our company synonymous with reliability, transparency, and efficiency, to every customer, every time, no matter how, where, or for how long they're communicating through us. While our competitors struggle to get people to choose their risky, incomplete offerings, AT&T will provide the best and only complete, fully integrated communications service.
This is our opportunity; this is our brand.
AT&T can become in the 21st Century what it was in the early 20th Century. People can once again look to us as their communications choice for life, without giving a second thought to whatever new invention or complicated service deal gets a new day's news headlines.
We'll deliver our brand in how our business functions, and by how we behave toward our customers, and to each other. Our name and logo will represent how we accomplish this great work.
Today, we are launching the new AT&T.
There are three major components to our brand vision:
First, our merger must be invisible to our customers. Nobody cares where we put people or departments, or why there's a reason one form or service doesn’t link to another. Our integration must be seamless, at every level, and across the entire enterprise.
So I'm announcing today a Manhattan Project-style crash-program on integration.
I don't want us to simply merge operations. I want a better business, a sum that is greater than its constituent parts. We cannot announce to our customers that they should care that we've merged. We must show them.
Therefore, each department will invent ways to provide unique services. We'll define the new AT&T brand with offering real benefits to our customers, starting with a zero hiccups threshold for customer service.
Then we'll improve it. Constantly.
Do customers want frequent user accounts and rewards, like the airlines offer? Do we need the systems integration that retailers use to design new products, or the organizational plans airplane manufacturers rely upon? Put them on the table. We need great ideas. Nothing is off-limits.
The second element of the new AT&T brand will be delivered via great products.
Again, a day doesn't pass that another technical device isn’t praised or panned in the media. This focus on gizmos reduces our role to that of a silent partner, otherwise left responsible for all of the risks making the devices work, yet in no position to gain any credit for it.
Our branding will be based also on integrating new products into our services.
Today, I have tasked our technical development teams to make this a reality. Instead of offering a laundry-list of devices, and hoping that they work within our system, we will find those technologies that we can wed to our services and support, thus creating an integrated, reliable offering that works any and every time our customers want to communicate.
Could there be new devices, maybe something like an Apple phone someday? Might we get into the wireless business? I say sure, let's look at it. But we'll first have to make sure they'll work flawlessly for our customers. Our excellence will differentiate the products, not the technology.
Now, to your role.
I firmly believe that people are more important than technology. Without people to make things work, and work consistently, no business today has any real differentiation.
So I am committing to you right now that we will not reduce the workforce in order to pay for this, or any other, merger.
If your job changes, you'll be offered a different one. If there's no specific job that fits your skills, we'll employ you in our global customer service initiative. I want the staff in place, and I want them empowered, to make sure we don’t leave a single customer behind as we reinvent our business.
Our human resources team is now developing a new incentive program, intended to reward you for your contributions to customer satisfaction and loyalty.
There's a place for you on the AT&T team, if you want it; if not, we'll help you find your next career opportunity. And, just so you know how committed I am to our vision, I have changed my compensation plan – and that of the entire leadership team – to be tied directly to our 1) company profitability, 2) success at employee retention, and 3) increase in shareholder value.
I want our entire organization to focus on getting our services merged, our products integrated, and our people involved.
Satisfy yourself that the new AT&T can satisfy its customers. We will make no promises, or announce any empty new promises or slogans, until we’re ready to make a difference in the marketplace.
Then…and only then…will we 'unveil' our branding accomplishments to our customers. Until then, our branding expenditure will be an investment in changing reality, not image.
Today, we are launching the new AT&T.
Thank you for your support.
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