The iBurst ghost returns
by Andrew Smith on 26/11/08 at 9:00 am
8 comments
Long-time Ideate readers will know that we have – how do I put this gently – loathsome thoughts towards the wireless internet provider iBurst. Read our past rants here, here, here, here and here.
After all of that, we’ve naturally moved on to greener pastures and iBurst is a distant and fading memory… But not according to their records. I received this e-mail from their marketing department today, which included a 500kb attachment (a PDF survey):
From: iBurst Business Survey
Sent: 25 November 2008 11:50 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Participate and Win with iBurst Business!Dear Business Subscriber
At iBurst, we are constantly improving our service offerings.
We have compiled a short survey to assist us in providing your business with the best service possible via the iBurst website.One lucky submission will be rewarded with a choice of a:
- R1500 HiFi Corporation Gift Card
- Atlas-GPS
- 4Gig Apple iPod, or
- Nintendo DS-LiteThe survey will take about 5 minutes to complete and will be open for submission for a period of 2 days.
Your information is secure. We will never share your personal details with a third party or allow any other company access to your personal information such as name, email address, etc.
Thank you for your participation,
The iBurst Team
Do they really want to know what their customers think? A while back they tried starting a blog, but it go so inundated with unhappy customers looking for a place to air their furstrations that it was quickly closed down.
Much simpler than sending out a survey would be doing a Twitter Search for iBurst and reading the results:
@riccwebb: Man…if I need to reconnect my iBurst one more time…someones gonna lose an eye.
4 days ago@mtrax: Iburst is up to $hit3 today…
4 days ago@justinspratt: not even daddy’s (knott-craig senior / vodacom bailout) money can help iburst – at least not yet
5 days ago@vincenthofmann: Iburst has screwed me over so hard its not even funny. still no word from them..
5 days ago@xsyn: iBurst = The route of all evil?
10 days ago
Or they could try Google Blog Search to come up with these beauties:
“iBurst my customer service bubble” – ITGeeks
“Bye Bye iBurst – whoop whoop Telkom” – naschenweng.info
“Iburst.co.za – your money for a good laugh” – Positve Balance
After a quick search on Facebook I found the following groups:
If all of this online stuff was a bit too technical for the marketing department, iBurst could employ the services of BrandsEye.com, the “Online Reputation Monitoring Tool” to stay completely up to date with what the online world is saying about their brand.
There is more than enough material out there for iBurst to work on. It’s free to find online, and you know it’s the honest truth and not survey results that have been distorted by the hope of winning an iPod (I usually say nice things to increase my chances!).
Have you checked what your customers are saying about your company online?
Andrew Smith is the pedantic systems guy behind Live Alchemy, a SA e-commerce company. Andrew writes for Ideate in an attempt to make the world a more efficient place. View more articles by Andrew Smith.
Tags: Twitter
Fred
Nov 26th, 2008
I want to know if you filled out that form, and if yes, please won’t you publish it live on Ideate?
Charl
Nov 26th, 2008
Oooh nice post – I concur
Nice reference to twitter and Google blog search – they clearly need a ORM tool.
Naeem
Nov 26th, 2008
pdf survey forms? & iBurst? ok then. Promptly deleted, nay shift+deleted!!
Martin
Nov 27th, 2008
so Andrew, what makes you so perfect and in love with services from Vodacom or telecom?
A comparison might actually make this column interesting to read if you knao how to compare apples.
Without iburst , many people would have dial up and stay in their huts or maybe that’s what you advocate.
Andrew
Nov 27th, 2008
@Fred, I didn’t fill out the form. It would have taken far more than 5 minutes of my time, and asked a ton of personal questions about my company.
@Martin, I did one speed comparison here:
http://www.ideate.co.za/2007/04/20/the-great-broadband-face-off-iburst-vs-adsl/
There are plenty of connectivity options other than iBurst, including other wireless providers, ADSL, WiMAX, ISDN and 3G.
Vincent
Dec 2nd, 2008
Lord knows I tried to attract the attention of someone in iburst. Hell I even submitted my “I hate iburst, you give us your money and we give you a great laugh” ad campaign to win their 50k prize, to no avail of course.
The iburst marketing team really hasn’t any idea how to use the medium they punt, they’ve attempted to simply brush off their glaring failures with an attempt at being forward thinking with the iburst competition. However looking at it, I’d rather not win a 2 year connection with Iburst. At their download speeds, I’d say the prize is at most worth just less than the macbook, I’ve reduced the prize’s value to include the cost of dealing with Iburst’s hopeless sales and service team.
Vincent
Dec 2nd, 2008
One last point, I’ve been a disgruntled Iburst contract holder for a little over a year now and MWEB have very kindly provided me with a vodacom 3g account to take the edge off of the next few months of ibursting.
Roll on the consumer protection bill, let it be passed and let me have the ability to opt out of clearly fatally flawed contracts. If an ISP intends to supply a particular service, at a given speed, I better have some recourse if it doesn’t fulfill its promises!
Still can’t believe Vodacom bailed iBurst out with! What a farce, how can a father – son team be given so much room to f-up!
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