[mythtv-users] CCI Copy Freely Letter Campaign

Simon Hobson linux at thehobsons.co.uk
Sun Jul 19 09:07:43 UTC 2015


Nigel Jewell <nigel.jewell at grufty.co.uk> wrote:

> I'm based in a region where this issue doesn't directly affect me, however out of interest I took a look at your letter.

Ditto, I'm in the UK - though what happens "over there" tends to get imported sooner or later :-(


> Do with this feedback what you wish, however it occurs to me that your letter is missing some form of context and pre-amble.  As you aren't able to send this directly to named individuals in the networks, it is likely to end up on the desk (or inbox) of someone that sorts massive amounts of incoming generic mail.  Even if you find the name of The President, they aren't going to sort their own correspondence.

I agree.

A summary up front would help - you have to get the message across clearly in the first sentence.

As an example of that, I've just had a lengthy exchange of emails with the customer service dept of a well known US based car manufacturer. They sell (in the US) a repair part which is basically a connector pre-assembled with a few inches of cable - so a damaged connector can be cut off along with the last couple of inches of cable (which is where the failure normally occurs) and inline splice the new connector on.
I wrote giving them a description of the problem, the part number I had, and even a link to one of their parts catalogues containing it - together with a story of how I have been to my local dealer who is unable to order it as it doesn't appear to be available to them in the UK.

The response was "go and see your local dealer, you can find your local dealer at <link>". Ie they didn't bother reading far enough down - second line of the email to find that I'd already been to my local dealer.
My response was "polite but firm" in pointing out that I'd told them I'd already been to my dealer but they couldn't help, and I'm not impressed that they did read this.

Guess what, I got another reply saying they couldn't help and I should go to my dealer.
I was "more robust" at this point - suggesting that if the customer service dept of the manufacturer can't find the information, what hope is there of the dealer getting anywhere.

And so it went on, and on, and on. First via a "mentions alternator - sends part number for alternator" and eventually to "we've asked technical and they can't help - get your dealer to raise a technical query".


So yes, you have to get the key point across in the first sentence, and it has to be clear enough that someone can get the jist of it while drinking their morning coffee, discussing last nights episode of <whatever soap is popular there> with their colleague in the next cubicle, and handling several online help sessions with users on their website. OK, so that might be a slight exaggeration, but that is the sort of attention level you need to assume - someone is going to pick that letter up, look for keywords in the first sentence, and they will probably never get further than that.

I'm generally not that good at such things, but how about something along the lines of "Why do you have technical policies designed to make customers leave ?" for a starting point ?
It's a fairly accurate summary of the issue (from our POV), plus it asks a question - and so at least invites a response - while the letter as written just makes a statement without actually asking for a response.


I would also suggest a second attack front. Advertisers have already been mentioned, how about a letter to them ?
"I'm a current subscriber to <cable co> and I see that <company> advertises with them - do you know that you are wasting your advertising dollars ?"
Then go on to say how the cable co is making life difficult for you, and therefore you are leaving them and so won't be watching that channel/channels - and as a matter of principle you'll be boycotting the products of <advertising company> as you don't want to support those who support <cable co>. It's probably going to be an unusual enough letter that it'll actually get read - while complaints to the cable company probably make up a huge proportion of their letters.

There's that old phrase - follow the money. The Cable Cos will take a lot more notice if their advertising customers (who after all account for a huge chunk of their income) start asking about this copy freely flag that's pissing people off enough to write to them to say they are boycotting their products.

This whole topic has come up several times in the - and each time it's been pointed out that if you add up all the Myth/Kodi/Whatever users ... if they all cancelled their contracts on the same morning, it still wouldn't show a blip in the normal churn rate of the cable company.





More information about the mythtv-users mailing list