AT&T’s ‘cease and desist’ threat: PR gaffe or clever plan?

The Internet is ablaze with criticism of AT&T for threatening a soon-to-be ex-customer not to send any more complaint emails to the company’s CEO Randall Stephenson. Critics are quick to judge the move as an awful PR gaffe, particularly in an age where reports of astoundingly shoddy acts of customer disservice can spread via the Internet faster than rumors of what color the next iPhone might be (spoiler: white!).

However, I’d like to suggest that perhaps AT&T had a perfectly valid reason for threatening customer Giorgio Galante with a cease-and-desist letter after, per his claims, he sent a whopping two complaint emails (both relatively short and politely worded) to Stephenson in the span of two weeks: In preparation for AT&T’s abandonment of its unlimited wireless data plans, Stephenson needs to reduce the number of email messages he picks up on his iPhone or iPad so as to keep his monthly bill down.

In case you missed it, AT&T announced this week that it’s putting an end to its unlimited wireless data plan, through which customers could pay a flat monthly fee to enjoy all-you-can-eat Internet access on their mobile devices, including watching videos, browsing Facebook, reading the news, and of course, checking email.

In its place, AT&T will offer two plans. Through the DataPlus plan, which will cost $15 per month, users get 200MB worth of data transfer. If you exceed 200MB, you’re billed another $15. The second plan is called DataPro, which runs $25 per month and gives you 2GB worth of data transfer. If you go over the limit, you pay $10 per extra gigabyte of data.

Suppose you’re a busy CEO. You’re often on the go, yet need to keep in touch with your colleagues and stockholders via email. You have to keep up on the news and what you’re competitors are doing. It’s no problem, because you have an unlimited wireless data plan. But what happens if, suddenly, your provider tells you that it’s eliminating that unlimited plan entirely and offering plans in its stead that won’t always meet your monthly needs?

A pound-wise CEO would surely realize that overage fees starting at $10 to $15 are pretty steep. Thus, said CEO would want to take steps to reduce those data transfers.

One way to accomplish that feat is to reduce the number of incoming emails. And what better way to reduce said emails than by threatening customers not to send them? That approach is far more personal than, say, blocking incoming emails from customers. At the same time, it’s decidedly unambiguous as opposed to merely saying, “Thank you for your comments. Unfortunately, we will not be able to respond to your emails personally.”

At this point, you might be saying, “Not so fast, Ted. Why would the CEO of AT&T have to pay to use his own company’s wireless services?” Simple: tax write-off. Or perhaps to adhere to a code of ethics about accepting perks from the company. Best not to think too hard about that part of my otherwise reasonable and bulletproof explanation as to why AT&T would threaten a customer with a cease-and-desist letter in response to two perfectly polite emails.

Because surely my reasoning makes a lot more sense than the alternative: that a multinational company like AT&T cares so little for its customers and is so oblivious to the potential fallout of this sort of scenario.

If, by the way, the fallout does result in a wave of customers abandoning AT&T, the company will enjoy yet another benefit beyond Stephenson staying within his monthly data limit: a reduction in traffic on AT&T’s network, which could result in better overall quality of service.

Wait — maybe that explains everything?

Update: AT&T has since apologized for the incident, attributing the incident to poor judgment on the part of “Brent,” the rep who dropped the cease-and-desist threat on Galante. Galante says he is still moving from AT&T.

This story, “AT&T’s ‘cease and desist’ threat: PR gaffe or clever plan?,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog.