Here’s a piece of creative writing, inspired by a News24 article re MTN contract cancellation and the Retentions Department.
Hello there, loyal MTN subscriber here
I love this piece and the description of the Retentions Department, in fact they used to be my top secret ammo that I would only ever let my inner circle know about, why, cause they could always wangle a deal…emphasis on ‘could’. You see I took out some crazy good Black Friday deal back in like 2014 and man were we having it (hello VodaCom), and why…cause you could share the data with like 10 numbers. We were living like fat cats, but realised very quickly that MTN forgot that our data was shareable…enter the MyBroadband chat thread on the MTN Blackfriday Deal, haha, this became a gold mine of a resource as someone figured out that all you had to do was email Jax O’Sully (not her real name) (also a former MTN exec), guys we were living the dream bypassing customer services and talking to an executive and actually getting things done, we even got like 2 months free on our contract when MTN realised they forgot to make our data shareable, flippit it was almost to good to be true.
Cause every two years since that deal, it was always the painful, heart breaking ordeal of contacting MTN to try and figure out how you could keep that level of data going and at such a good price…I mean guys we were the ones outside of WiFi hotspots streaming YouTube videos on full HD resolution…we didn’t worry about running out of data or usage, cause MTN had us…they had us…now I know, they ‘had us’, like a drug dealer, MTN knew we were nothing without them and made us addicted to the freedom of the internet everywhere we would go. Da-da-da-da-da-da-daaaaaaa (come on, you know the jingle).
Anyways, those painful customer service calls, transfers to the Retention Department and waiting an average of 45min for someone to pick up, and then the promises of just hold on, you’ll get an SMS with a special renewal offer, would then plague this once amazing offer.
And if it wasn’t good enough, don’t worry, just email Jax, within minutes you were put in touch with one of her assistants who would just make it happen, nobody knows how, I have my theories, I rate she put me in contact with the CEO or the head of the board, or some super human, because the deal…the drug supply…would continue…until one day, 2 years, the deal went bad, significantly bad, it just died.
Email to Jax, loop in assistant…loop in customer services, and the deal, the same as for everyone else, WHAT!! Email back to Jax, assistant, customer services, same schlep…
NO NO NO NO NO, it’s me, 076 xxxx 475, yes…Ryan Odendaal, address blah blah blah, yes me, remember me, I’m inner circle, your bestie, you know how you always share the good stuff with me…yes, come on MTN, old buddy, old pal, just one last hit of data at mad prices…just one last time, I promise I’ll sign up to fibre after this, I promise I’ll change my ways and get clean, but you can’t leave me this way, I can’t stand to stream at 480p…I have responsibilities now, hopes, dreams…a future…
But just like that, poof…all gone in the blink of an eye. The silence was deafening, the betrayal was too painful to bare…
Here I am.
2 years later.
Almost fully recovered and on a month to month data contract, not being able to commit long term, but somewhere inside of me there is a longing, a hope, a desperate cry for a well priced data only contract, and I know that in that moment I would abandon this temporary monthly option for something more permanent, 24 months…36 months…anything, just anything is better than facing the reality that for the last 11 years you’ve given up your choice of service provider to the one that would eventually spit you out and treat you like dirt, treat you just like everybody else.
‘Excuse me sirrrrrrrrr, have you looked in the YelloTrader…”
What a fall from glory…
It’s now cold here where I am. Everyone just stares blindly in front of them. Nobody mutters a word. You can hear a pin drop, the silence is deafening.
Yours faithfully,
A recovering MTN customer
Still an MTN customer with multiple lines, but still
PS dear Jax, if you ever read this, you were amazing!! And I’m sorry if I was part of the reason that you left MTN.
now, he says that we can change our contracts (in store) before the 11th of November (to avoid that whacker bill) to a Month-to-Month contract, then call Retentions @ the end of this month to get the BF Retention deals
