Social Media Gives Consumers a Voice & Power

Last night I was on Twitter when a link to this story was sent to me and 3962 other followers of @BenPhoster. My ReTweet went out to 982 followers, less than a minute later.

That's how social media sites like Twitter and Facebook can work and the Public Relations departments at companies that act like bullies, need to realize this.

Here's the story from engadget.com:

AT&T warns customer that emailing the CEO will result in a cease and desist letter

By Nilay Patel

Sure, Steve Jobs might be a one-man email PR machine, but his pal Randall Stephenson at AT&T doesn't appear to be quite as gregarious -- as reader Giorgio Galante found out today, sending AT&T's CEO two emails in two weeks results in a phone call from AT&T's Executive Response Team and a warning that further emails will result in a cease and desist letter.

What did Giorgio's emails say? The first was a request to bump up his iPhone eligibility date and a request for a tethering option, and today's outlined his displeasure with AT&T's new data rates and ultimate decision to switch to Sprint and the EVO 4G. That prompted "Brent" to call Giorgio back and thank him for the feedback, but also politely warn him that further emails would be met with legal action.

Ouch. As you'd expect, AT&T just lost itself a customer. We've followed up with Ma Bell to find out exactly why they went the lawyer route instead of oh, say, filtering Randall's email -- we'll let you know what they say.

P.S.- Amusingly, Giorgio says he emailed both Randall Stephenson and Steve Jobs last year about offering tethering and actually got a response from Steve -- maybe these two CEOs need to talk about more than data rates and service quality the next time they meet up.