Telkom’s poor image

Lowering prices to acceptable levels would be a good place to start - if they cared.
 
Just getting round to answering their call centre phones would be another huge step forward and when they do, not bullsh!tting the customer
 
The reality is Telkom never does anything to benefit the consumer unless they're being forced to or are about to be.
 
The long and the short of it is. If we get true competition, Telkom will have to rebrand under a different name. If we don't get proper competition, Telkom can muck about as it always has.
 
Any competition on offer could not possibly be as ungrateful to their client base and treat their customers with as much disrespect (verbally and intellectually) as Telkom currently do.
It just isn't possible.

Telkom's 'my way or the highway' attitude is just not going to cut it anymore in a competitive environment and i would wager that there are truckloads of people just itching to cut all ties with this company the minute they get given a viable alternative

I honestly think though that whoever is assessing this tarnished image, with the view of doing damage control, would also have to seriously consider suggesting the fact that this ship is going down, no matter how many holes you plug.
It might be a more sensible option to just cut out the pieces that can be salvaged and give them a total revamp, separately as individual companies.
Telkom will always be Telkom, the damage has been done and is irreversible.
 
rpm said:
http://mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=2547
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A study by Burston, Marstellar and Roper in 2003 found that 50% of the respondents linked the reputation of the CEO to that of the company.
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Who can be positive regards to a company like Telkom's reputation, if they continually defraud it's consumer base with inflated prices and feed them as well as investors and the GVT of the day with misinformation about Telkoms reasons and modus operandi regards to pricing and structures. Then they bring in a new CEO vomiting a lot of ideas about future consumer centric activities (stolen catch phrases) and open communications and then he does not keep any of the promises. The customer or consumer was suppose to be on top of the agenda and what they got is higher prices, reduced services and terrible infrastructure performance. I think Bin Laden is more worthy in reputation as he keeps his promises!
Nope I think 10 Years, total management structure change and a Telkom constitution charter change will MAYBE do something to change the deserved Tarnished reputation! within a few years of positive developments after that! Look how long it took BT to achieve where they are today and that is with cultured leaders without their own dark agenda's!
 
To sum it up, Telkom would have to do all of the following if they have any hope to rebuild their tarnished reputation:

1) Stop lying and Keep to Promises.
Telling a new ADSL client it will take 4 - 6 weeks to process an order and then inexplicably delaying the installation for an extra 1/2/3 months only serves to drive customers away in a competitive environment. It might've taken way too long to get there, but competition is coming.

2) Lower prices without negatively affecting Service Delivery.
Use some of the supernormal profits made over the years to "subsidize" the customer. Improving the infrastructure should've started years ago, but it's never too late to begin - just don't expect the consumer to pay for the upgrade to your infrastructure. Grocery stores don't raise costs just because they need to remodel the store to cater for a larger selection of products.

3) Act with Honesty and Integrity.
Stop using the benefits of monopoly and size to drive out competition with disappropriate pricing structures on a wholesale level. Win customers over with good and reliable service, low prices and innovative products.

4) Listen to your customers.
Yes, there are a lot of South Africans that may not understand their rights. Don't take advantage of that. Pay attention to what the informed customers have to say - all criticism (the good AND especially the bad) only serves to let you know what to do to make things right and thereby keep the customers happy!

These are basic principles that Telkom need to learn and put into practice. If Telkom can achieve this, then even jaded customers that are tired of being abused, will have to think carefully before jumping ship. Afterall, the consumer only wants the best option at the end of the day. The problem is that if you upset your customer base enough - no amount of apologising can fix that ... so start NOW - before it's really too late.
 
Interesting:

Vodacom is experiencing a lot of service problems (read the forum!), but I doubt if their public image is damaged according to the depth of service problems due to the way they handle it.
 
They don't care about the consumer, they have no reason to at this stage. At least in foreign markets with lots of competition, competition is the vehicle which kind of "forces" good customer service for fear of loosing market share.
 
A company, like Telkom, who is suffering from a poor public and corporate image, can expect to wait around 4 years to rebuild a blemished reputation.
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Somehow that does not sound plausible to me where Telkom's concerned
 
A company, like Telkom, who is suffering from a poor public and corporate image, can expect to wait around 4 years to rebuild a blemished reputation.
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Its going to take a lot longer than 4 years. The amount of crap that they've subject this country to over the past decade would make anyone doubt whether they'll ever be trustworthy again. Watch their share price plummet once the new ECA takes effect and LLU comes into operation. The bottom line is that it's already too late, they should have been building a good image over the past decade instead of trying to rape people of every cent, by now they would have had a good image and been highly profitable granted their monopoly position. Seems like everything is catching up to them, and they've realised that they screwed up when it's too late.
 
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The bottom line is that it's already too late, they should have been building a good image over the past decade insteading of trying to rape people of every cent, by now they would have had a good image and been highly profitable granted their monopoly position. Seems like everything is catching up to them, and they've realised that they screwed up when it's too late.
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Exactly. Idiots. I hope they crash and burn. I was once your customer comes around and bites them in the arse.
 
The best analogy I can find in my head for Telkom's corporate image is to use Anderson's fable :Emperor's new clothes

The Emperor has been walking naked for the past 10 years !

Blinded by supremacy,arrogance and greed,Just could not see the truth

cumstomer dissatisfaction (about over-pricing)has been building up for many many years,

No company deserves to have any brand value unless customers are happy with its product,service,price.- brand value is the clothes of a company

Telkom 's corporate image is thus more correctly spelled as Telkom's corporate mirage ,you might only find it in the middle of the desert.

from the bottom of my heart -the truth same as from the child in the fable.
 
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Brand value is determined by your customers. The way Telkom has treated people in the past has cost them any value they had left. Telkom's only hope imo is to go after impoverished areas where people don't know any better. But that would still be a very long shot since there's not a lot of money to be made there. Either way I think they are probably doomed. So what would happen then is the SNO would become the ONO and we will have another monopoly. The only way to stop them from becoming vampires would be to enact legislation now. The only way to stop this ONO from emerging is perhaps to break Telkom up into a number of smaller companies with completely different names.

This might seem all doom and gloom, but it is an entirely realistic picture of things to come.
 
I still don't think that breaking Telkom up would result in lower prices. What's stopping the resultant parts from forming a cartel and working together as one? Price fixing and the like. The only real solution is to stop this "managed liberalisation" and delay tactics crap and open up the market completely, just like every other industry. Unbundle the loop, provide access to the submarine cable at cost price, and let the competition bring prices down. Gvt already owns 100% of Sentech. Why the need to strangle the telecoms industry in particular? Is this going to lead to some kind of censorship by denying access to freedom of speech? If they want to warn us of tsunami's then they may do so via Sentech. Is it really necessary for them to have their finger in everything?
 
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Highflyer_GP said:
I still don't think that breaking Telkom up would result in lower prices.
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No, the competion between the resulting parts and the SNO would result in the lower prices. The breaking up of Telkom would be to save them so we don't get an ONO (Only Network Operator). Otherwise the customer base would have to be split between Telkom and SNO. Any good chance of that happening? If it doesn't then it's bye-bye Telkom and hello ONO. Leaving us with a monopoly again.
 
I remember last year when they phoned to do market research on my new adsl installation I told the lady I am not going to wast her time..... just mark all the questions as the worst score :-). (This is after waiting for two months for my line to be sorted out). I am glad to see more people feel the way i do about telkom.
 
ic said:
Do you mean that 4 years of bad karma is not enough?

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Depends on how long it will take them to get a totally new subscriber base. I dont think any of their current victims... err subscribers will be changing their opinion about Telkom in the near future
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