Rogers’ paid social media outreach campaign on Twitter was supposed to promote the company’s new 1Number service, more or less a ripoff of Google Voice (with fewer features) that lets Rogers’ cell phone customers make and receive calls from a computer or wireless phone, engage in video chats, and send text messages from the 1Number portal. But the paid tweets, which reached the top of Canada’s “trending topics,” quickly went rogue after antagonized customers who loathe Canada’s largest cable operator hijacked the campaign.

“Rogers deserves every tweet coming their way,” wrote one Ontario customer. “What a national disgrace of a company. I’ll bet my last dollar this is the first time top [management] has had any clear indication what their customers think of them. Until now, they’ve just been busy finding new ways to part customers from their money.”

“Bryck123” took Rogers’ debacle more in stride: “Watching this epic fail is almost worth all that I’ve overpaid you guys over the years.”

Ironically, Rogers is paying Twitter for most of the venting and customer wrath.  Twitter sells a “promoted tweets” service to companies who pay whenever someone retweets, replies, clicks, or gives a “thumbs-up” to the promotion. A lot of Canadians are obliging, telling Rogers their customer service, billing and pricing is a disaster.

Hijacking a paid social media outreach campaign isn’t new on Twitter. McDonalds learned this themselves in January when its own paid hashtag turned into a bashtag.

“Rogers learned nothing from McDonalds’ disastrous Twitter campaign, which it smartly ended after a few hours,” said Twitter user Jacques Roglet. “Rogers has been carrying on for days, and so have their customers.”

Roglet says Rogers’ mistake was trying to use Twitter as a way to reach younger customers with a one-way advertising campaign.  Twitter was designed for two way (or more) communication, and Rogers showed no interest in establishing a dialogue with their customers.

They are now.

In an effort to turn consumer lemons into lemonade, a small army of Rogers’ social media representatives are reaching out to complaining customers to address sometimes long-standing problems and concerns.  Customers threatening to leave Rogers behind are winning special customer retention deals that slash rates or deliver larger broadband usage allowances for the same money.  But it may be too late for some.

“I think if there is some true Canadian identity, something shared by Canadians from all walks of life, it might be the common experience of having your money and time stolen by Roger’s criminal syndicate,” shared Michael To.

But things may not be that great elsewhere.

“I went through Bell, Rogers and Telus over the course of 12 years,” shared one reader of the Globe and Mail. “‘Bad service’ doesn’t describe it adequately – ‘absolute contempt for my humanity’ better describes it – every one of the them viewed me as a muppet to be abused, exploited and soaked as much as possible.”

[Thanks to Stop the Cap! reader Damian who alerted us.]

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Welcome to Rogers One Number.flv[/flv]

Rogers produced this video introducing customers to its 1Number service.  (2 minutes)

Ever wonder why cell phone companies are upset about new regulations that would warn customers when they are about to face mobile usage overlimit or roaming fees?  Rogers Communications explains why in their latest quarterly results:

Nadir Mohamed, CEO:

There was, however, a sequential slowing in the wireless data revenue growth rate, and that’s primarily attributable to new outbound data roaming plans that we put in place. With these new plans, we put in place automated customer notification mechanisms that had a net effect of slowing usage versus stimulating it to the degree that we expected it to. We’re in the process of modifying how these plans and notifications work, which I expect will have a more stimulative effect and help restore the trajectory we had for wireless data growth.

In simpler terms, Rogers began notifying their customers through text messaging when they were about to start data roaming — the most expensive data usage around, incurred when you leave Rogers’ service area and roam on another provider’s network.  With Canadians visiting the United States and elsewhere, using a cell phone while traveling can get expensive fast.  Rogers created new roaming data plans for customers likely to need the service while abroad.  But their roaming data plans come at steep prices:

Unintended consequences: When subscribers know they are about to pay more, they stop using.

U.S. Data Passes

Day Pass: $5 for 2MB
Day Pass: $10 for 10MB
Day Pass: $20 for 40MB
Week Pass: $25 for 15MB
Week Pass: $50 for 60MB
Week Pass: $100 for 250MB

The warnings that customers were about to incur even higher a-la-carte roaming fees or start to consume their day or weekly data pass had the unintended, but highly predictable effect of getting people to think carefully about using data while roaming.

Bruce

While good for consumers, that is bad for Rogers’ bottom line, so the company’s formerly frank warnings to customers are “being modified” to help the company “stimulate” revenue and restore the predicted revenue growth from the high-priced roaming plans.

“We tried to create real transparency about when people and how people could get on data packages as they went overseas,” admits Robert Bruce, president of Rogers Communications Division. “We put in a fair number of reminders to let people know that they were on à la carte pricing, and we think that these dissuaded significantly customers from using it and possibly created some confusion along the way.”

Rogers Cable customers are also finding some of the company’s newest innovations a challenge to their monthly broadband usage allowances, among the lowest in Canada:

• Rogers Remote TV Manager: Enables cable subscribers to search programming and manage PVR recordings anytime on any device;
• Rogers Live TV. This service lets cable customers stream live TV channels on their tablets and watch shows anywhere they are in the home;
• Rogers On Demand TV app on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 LIVE platform, bringing Rogers On Demand TV to the gaming console;
• A refresh of the digital cable user interface, improving ease of use for the Whole Home PVR and a better program guide and search function.

In the long term, Rogers is moving towards an IP-based delivery system for its video programming, allowing the company to deliver video across different platforms more efficiently.  As Rogers converts the rest of its cable systems to digital cable, it is opening up new broadband capacity — a critical part of the company’s revenues.

Rogers admits it uses data caps to drive revenue.  By moving customers into higher usage, more expensive tiers, Rogers is able to drive revenue upwards as well.

“As customers continue every quarter, in and out, to consume more and more and spend more and more time on the Internet, we think it’s both a great opportunity for us and a welcome addition to the product offering from a customer perspective,” Bruce said.

Just a few weeks after announcing $2 rate increases on most tiers of the company’s broadband service, Rogers Communications has announced speed upgrades and tiny increases in usage allowances for certain customers:

• Express: download speeds will increase from up to 12Mbps to up to 18Mbps and data allowance will increase from 60GB to 70GB.
• Extreme: download speeds will increase from up to 24Mbps to up to 28Mbps and data allowance will increase from 100GB to 120GB.

These enhancements apply to customers utilizing Rogers DOCSIS 3.0 capabilities. Rogers will start rolling out the faster speeds to existing Express tier customers currently receiving download speeds of up to 12 Mbps starting January 26^th and will continue over the following weeks. New customers will experience faster speeds beginning February 21^st. All new and existing customers will benefit from higher data allowances starting March 8^th.

Rogers has played repeatedly with their usage allowances, particularly for its Extreme tier, which has seen increases and decreases over the past few years:

Rogers Extreme Tier Usage Cap History

• 2009: 95GB per month
• 2010: Reduced to 80GB per month (-15GB)
• 2011: Increased to 100GB per month (+20GB)
• 2012: Increased to 120GB per month (+20GB)

Rogers’ Express service gets just a 10GB monthly bump, making the speed upgrade less valuable because customers are restrained from using the service.

Rogers says the incremental upgrades are a result of Canadians using the Internet more than ever.

“Rogers customers are increasingly watching movies on Rogers on Demand Online, working from home and using multiple devices like tablets and laptops connected by Wi-Fi to the internet,” said John Boynton, executive vice-president and chief marketing officer at Rogers Communications. “The ways Canadians are using the internet are changing dramatically and we are constantly reviewing our plans and policies to ensure they deliver the best possible customer experience that lines up with evolving needs and usage patterns.”

Apparently those living in western Canada use the Internet even more, because Shaw Communications’ comparable broadband tiers are much more generous:

Shaw Communications Usage Allowances

• High Speed 10Mbps: 125GB per month
• High Speed 20Mbps: 200GB per month
• Broadband 50Mbps: 400GB per month

Citing “the many enhancements they have launched” in the past year, Rogers Cable has announced an across-the-board broadband rate increase that will cost subscribers an additional $2 a month for Internet service effective March 1, 2012.

Rogers claims the rate increases come as a result of investments in their broadband network and the introduction of SpeedBoost, which delivers a temporary speed increase during the first few seconds of file transfers.

Rogers also claims they have increased monthly usage allowances and download speeds on many of the company’s broadband packages.

The rate increase is not going over well with subscribers, however.

Stop the Cap! reader Nick in Markham, Ontario is one of them.

"No additional charge," except for the $2 rate increase Rogers suggests comes after the addition of "service enhancements" like SpeedBoost.

“Rogers introduced ‘SpeedBoost’ as a ‘free’ feature which we are now apparently/effectively going to pay more for,” Nick writes. “I am really unimpressed with Rogers’ ‘generosity,’ especially respecting bitcaps, considering they are totally arbitrary.”

Nick notes customers in Quebec and western Canada have more generous usage allowances, and often lower bills.

“Shaw customers are getting a much better deal than Rogers’ customers these days,” Nick says. “If Rogers increased prices by $2 and took the caps completely off, I’d gladly pay a little more just to end years of headaches over watching my Internet usage.”

“I am so tired of feeling like my Internet connection is being rationed, and considering my choices have been Bell or Rogers, I think I’ll sacrifice some of the higher speeds and just consider switching to TekSavvy DSL, because it costs less and doesn’t come with Rogers’ stingy caps.”

A Montreal Gazette piece on the Canadian telecommunications industry says stockholders and company executives are doing much better, enjoying major boosts in telecom industry dividends.  The industry enjoyed a 25% boost in stock price + dividend yield over other Canadian stocks over the past 12 months.  The industry also enjoys the benefits a barely-competitive marketplace that offers opportunities for unfettered rate increases:

Canada remains a heavily protected market in telecommunications, which is one reason why consumers don’t get the kind of deals available in other countries.

But in the absence of such [competitive] changes, there’s a strong case to be made that telecom and cable companies will post solid profit growth this year and next.