Qwest announced plans a few weeks back to share all sorts of its customers information (including frequently called phone numbers) between its many far-flung divisions, unless explicitly asked not to by each customer (known in the biz as an “opt out”).
Six hundred thousand angry calls later, Qwest has decided that might just be a bad idea, and is dropping the concept. That was about 5% of Qwest’s total customers, which is an incredibly high complaint rate.
“We have customers upset right now. It’s not worth having them upset,” Nacchio said. He said Qwest, which has 12 million local phone customers in its 14-state region, received calls from about 5 percent of its customers.
Qwest’s decision means that it won’t share private account information — such as the phone numbers a customer frequently calls — to divisions such as Qwest Wireless or Qwest long distance.
Nacchio also reiterated that Qwest doesn’t and won’t share private customer account information with third parties. Nacchio acknowledged that Qwest’s initial notice was confusing on the issue.
“We did not do a good job of communicating,” Nacchio said.
Ya think?