Study: Cingular brand more popular than AT&T

That's like Phillips-Magnavox, or Sony-Ericsson. It could work, but you never know.

 

I think they should be more concerned with streamlining management than worrying about the name change. I think and I just think it but one of the things that hindered their growth for a while was the idea that Sigman had to answer to two different boards of directors.

That being said, I think the at&t name is a much better "brand" name. Its more recognizable globally. Where the benefit is drawn for a more globally recognizable name I don't know but it sounds good to say.

I wonder if this poll would be reversed if At&t had been the kept name and Cingular was now the name they were changing too????

 

Unfortunatly for Brand names, AT&T got beaten up in the 80's in the US & it hurt them big time.
Yes Globally they are a bigger name, and another problem is with all their past problems the younger generation doesn't know it as well as the older generation that knows how the name meant something.
It's going to take Cingular/AT&T a while to get people to look at AT&T as a leader again and a lot of work by the current management that took over AT&T and BellSouth.

For a while and maybe more then 6 months they may need to keep the rebranding process going, maybe they should have the Alpha tags say AT&T/Cingular on them for 4-6 Months to get people use to the changes in the name only.

The only problem with Cingular keeping the AT&T Wireless name, was it belonged to the original AT&T as a leased name, and they weren't able to keep it under the merger agreements. Would it have helped, I don't think so & by going as Cingular from AT&T Wireless then to AT&T may actually help them.

A lot of people had bad experiences with AT&T Wireless and even with the name change you hear people thinking it's going back to the old AT&T Wireless & complaining.

They have their work cut out for them, but I think if they do it right, they can make it work.

 

You mean like Sprint Nextel?

 

THe Cingular Name is Dead (as much as i dont like it).There is no going back the rebranding is going foward and alot faster than alot of you know in next few weeks there are alot of changes that will be effecting "The New AT&T".A Opp asked me my view on how fast the change will be and i told him i actually think as soon as they have enough Blue paint and shirts ordered LOL.

 

They should just keep the Cingular name and put in small print "a division of AT&T" but they won't because of corporate arrogance. I agree with the study. AT&T has a negative image to me, not because of the 80's and the breakup but because of how sluggish and behind the times they have always been. Not to mention their failed ventures in the past, Lucent Technologies, AT&T computer division, etc. Then, there are recent memories of AT&T Wireless and its poor customer service and horrible coverge. I remember people saying when the Cingular name came about that it was needed because of the bad image and reputation AT&T Wireless had. How soon we forget, but maybe that is what they are relying on :browani:

 

From my own experience. When it used to be ATT wireless, I had great services and coverage. Then when it became Cingular I thoughts things would get better, but it didn't and it went from good to bad. If I get a dime each time I was lied to by Cingular Reps/customer service, I would be rich.

It has gotten so bad that recently I switched to T-mobile and have been pretty happy so far.

TBH, doesn't really matter which name the brand, if their customer service and their management is poor. A good name can become bad over night.

 

I am not sure where you live, but am guessing CA by your coverage experience & saying coverage got worst. They appear to still be working on integration in CA from what I hear & it's a large state with a lot of work needed to the old Blue network.

I know for I also never had a problem with AT&T Wireless, and when they merged I know a lot of Orange customers coverage improved as the integration happened & now they are happy.
This is in the North NJ area, but others have said coverage has improved when the integration was completed.

I guess we all will see what happens when the name changes & if it really does effect new customers & Churn over the year.

 

Nope I live in Lexington, Kentucky.

Background I use a triband phone that does not use 850mhz. So it uses 1900 mhz. And it was working fine up until last April. Called Cingular numerous time but they can never tell me why it stopped working (each time it was something different). The only area that can still get a signal was at the Bluegrass Airport.

And if you check coverage map from Cingular, they don't tell you which area uses 850/1900

The company I work for uses Cingular and the devices are quad band, so those have no problems at all with signal, but driving thru I-75 between lexington and Cincinnati, frequently your calls will get dropped or the quality of the call would become so bad that you will have to hang up.

 

That was your problem for sure, lack of 850, as well as them still adding towers ect... I am pretty sure they are running both bands in KY. You only need a dual band for the US, since 2 of the bands on a quad are for Europe & other counties overseas.

It's good that your T-Mobile is working well for you in these area's & that's what's the most important thing.

 

Cingular told the GSM Forum, see my earlier http://forums.wirelessadvisor.com/cingular-wireless-users/57781-850-1900-mhz-3g-band-coverage.html thread.

COtech

 

I would say that it is worth teh risk to change the naem. If one looks at the JD powers survey, the Cingular brand did not do well on a national basis. So may be the at&t will get that turned around.

 

To be honest, i dont think that the Cingular name is in any way shape or form better than AT&T. AT&T is soooo mush better than Cingular imho!!!! Plus the cs that i got from at&t was 1000 times bettr than the cs i get from Cingular. Cingular is horriable!!!! AT&T was the best i ever had!!!

I compleatly agree!

If anything, i think AT&T would be WAY better than Cingular!!!!!

 

I feel it is the right choice. They want to bundle services. It would only make sense to have the same name.

 

You do realize that only the name is changing & it's not going to change their CS, it's still the same Cingular people running the business.

This is Not the Old AT&T, it's Cingular's owners SBC/BellSouth.
1st SBC bought AT&T Corp. and kept the AT&T name, then they bought BellSouth & changed that to AT&T. Since SBC/AT&T now own 100% of Cingular, they are changing it's name to AT&T.

 

One thing I wonder, does any one think that at&t might some how unify their CS group and gun for the best service? I know the days of the old AT&T when they still owned the Wireless they had the best CS ever which started to fall appart slowly after it was spun off from the parent company.

 

It's possible. It might make things easier if you can just call one number and speak to one representative about all your "at&t" services.. Just like I can now, with my local, long distance, and DSL..

The thing about AWS even before the spinoff, they were still a separate division of AT&T Long Distance, and had their own customer service, but you're right. Prior to the spinoff AWS customer service was soo much better. Having worked for them in customer service (1998-2004), it was a pain for all of us to have to deal with the stupidity from Management and never ending changing of how we were to deal with customers.. Which was the main reason why I quit my job there, right before the buyout from Cingular, they completely lost their sense of direction, and had us going every which way, struggling to keep as many customers as possible. It was all about the contracts... Get as many people in contracts as you could..

 

This is very unlikely because at&t contracts out a lot of their customer service call centers. I'm assuming they have different 'divisions' so that a number of these 'divisions' can be contracted out to low-bidder third parties that can do the job for less. I know a few people that answer the phones for at&t though I can't remember for which division. They've all sounded really bitter about their job but I won't go into details. It will be hard for at&t to improve the customer service when they're not actually the ones that do their own customer service. It could be different for at&t mobile/wireless though but I doubt a unified cs is in the near future.

 

You have phone that still has a AT&T logo on it? is it TDMA? If so thats your problem. The IRDB and other roaming programing is locking you out. Also Ohio 1900mhz PCS is GONE. Since they didn't have Analog they didn't need to keep that state online till 2008. They cleared the band width so they could getthe GSM and UMTS imbeded better. So you are roaming off a bunch of little compaines.

If you have a Cingular logo GSM product and having this complaint I would suspect your issue is the phone not the system.

 

I would think may be they would combine and use some part of it. It can not be all of the at&t CS be handled by third party. Cingular has a lot of its owned call centers with some contracts that they picked up from the days of blue and they continue to have them (most are in Canada). I doubt they will but if they move to integrate products they then would need specific departments to handle the all in one and not keep sending one from one department to the other.

 

I thought Cingular had quite a few Call Centers in the US as well, when they were talking about their union negotiations, I thought they mentioned around 5. I could be wrong though and we know they have a couple in Canada as you mentioned.

It would make sense for them to consolidate them into the centers & may save them more money in the long run.

 

In addition.. A few months after the buyout, all of the AWS owned call centers (not 3rd party vendors..) were transitioned over to Cingular customer service, and all the 3rd party vendors remained the "blue" customer service team.

 

att will do just fine, nicholing and dimeing us to death, making money hand over fist.:loony:

 

They have to keep the investors & Upper Managment happy with all of their money they keep putting in their pockets.

Maybe when they have their networks built out, then they can give us a break. (Yeah Right).

 

Lets face it, no matter what it is called, if the system works, and the price is right, people will by it. I know people who still had their service with AT&T and never paid the price to switch to Cingular just to get rollover. I only went back after several years with Verizon to get the additional lines for $9.95. Then Verizon came out with it. I still remember the old days of 1986 when I had this HUGE EFJohnson phone hanging off my dash and two antennas on the roof of my truck and sometimes the $600 phone bills for the month. Then it was Cellular One. Verizon was BAMS. And everybody's phone worked on everybody's network. And I still have my custom number from 1986! And I still carry my 2 way radio. Guess I am from the stone ages. Got that in 78. And remember when the pager was king? I even have one that has the Cell One logo. Enough history.....