KEY POINTS:
In the light of this week's Bubble fiasco, Telecom customers would be well justified in believing that the company has taken its strategy of sowing confusion in the marketplace to a new level. Now it sows anger as well as confusion.
It was not just that it managed to make a hash of upgrading to Yahoo!Xtra Bubble, it was the attitude afterwards of not seeming to care that thousands had been seriously inconvenienced.
At first it played down the problem, saying a fault had affected "some customers' ability to access webmail". What this prize piece of corporate doublespeak meant was that thousands had been cut off at the weekend. Five days later hundreds remained without the email services they rely on for their businesses.
Making everything so much worse was the insensitive way that Telecom glossed over the problem. It was well-nigh impossible to get help or information. Telecom declared it would not compensate businesses. Worse, it went on trumpeting the exciting new Bubble service that would supposedly change the way its subscribers used the internet.
But disgruntled customers were not buying it and hundreds expressed their anger - and explained the enormous personal and business costs - in public forums such as Herald Online. But midweek, Telecom was prepared to talk about compensation after all, apparently having suddenly realised that for many people email is not just a means of social communication but a tool on which their businesses rely.
Now the worry for Telecom is that the Bubble adventure may change the way its customers use the internet - not as the company intended but by switching to a user-friendly provider.
