Share Investor: Telecom NZ: TV3 60 Minutes Segment more like Corporate PR

Thursday, March 18, 2010

As an exercise in spin, the piece on 60 Minutes last night about Telecom NZ [TEL.NZ] XT Mobile Network failure was barely able to fool the foolish let alone those intelligent enough to leave the network over their recent failures.

Telecom corporate video was used to show the viewer that yes Telecom and its employees were human too and that we all make mistakes. We were supposed to feel sympathy for the hapless tel-co but most watching, especially XT customers, would have instead been close to physically sick.

Blame was apportioned to Acaltel, little to the man ultimately responsible, CEO Paul Reynolds, and it was suggested throughout that it was time for disgruntled Telecom customers to "move on".

Once again PR cannot take the place of actual service and making the product a good one, especially when it fails to live up to company promised expectations.

Arrogant, empty and inward looking, just like the culture at head office, a culture that will ultimately kill the company.

Telecom shareholders would have cringed just as much as they would have over the falling share price.