The Conference Coach™

I love old movies.  Maybe it’s because I’m old and I’ve been around long enough to have seen a lot of them.  One of my favorites is the movie, “Network”.  In that movie, Peter Finch plays a network TV anchor who goes a little haywire and takes control of the set.  His most famous line is “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”  He broadcasts that out and you have an entire audience who takes up his rant as a call to action.

It seems to me as if a lot of us have reached that point with many things that we are no longer willing to live with.  Think about those poor airline passengers stuck on a plane on the runway for hours with no food, water and bathrooms that quit working.  Now, there’s a big push for a passenger bill of rights.  I’m all in favor of that because being stuck on a plane for hours with screaming babies and no bathrooms is my idea of what hell may be like.

And what about credit card companies?  I don’t pay as much attention to my bill as I should, but I’m shocked by the tricks they will pull to make money.  You’ve now heard of credit card companies who raise rates at a whim, up your minimum without telling you, or add tons of fees you didn’t sign up for.  The credit card bill of rights was just enacted and I think it’s about time that companies who use the fine print to sock it to customers are reigned in.

OK, now it comes to my industry, conferencing.   There are some companies, and you know who you are, that give us all a bad name.  When their revenue dips, they make it up by adding fees for all kinds of things that should be free.  What about a fee for a minimum call charge….or random “telecom fees”…..and my personal favorite, a fee to send you a copy of your invoice so you can pay them.

It’s time for a conferencing bill of rights and for customers to say, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

Join the Conferencing Revolution!