Dear AGL...

This is an open letter to AGL marketing department. I post it on my blog because the online enquiry form does not take text over 1000 characters and my rant was well over 2000 characters. Also there is no contact email advertised anywhere, so this is the next best thing as far as I am concerned. I will scan and post the actual letter that I received later.

Dear AGL,

I would like to write and complain about a very stupid marketing campaign that some incompetent hack in your obviously ineffective marketing department has come up with.

I received a letter in the mail that looks like a newspaper, has a picture of some guy who is not me with the text “ZEVAKA IN TRANSFER SHOCKER” in what looks like 36 pt. font.

The letter then proceeded with a number of paragraphs of drivel about me being a valuable team(???) member and asking me to call AGL to see if there is a better deal you can offer.

I have a number of problems with this:

1. I do not like my name next to a picture of some guy in what obviously looks like negative context. I understand that it’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but I do not know anyone at AGL well enough to accept that as a joke. In fact I don’t know anyone at AGL at all.

2. In the text of the letter it mentioned a possible $75 disconnection fee and that I should call to discuss a better deal. Well I did call months ago and I am not liable for a disconnection fee and no, you could not offer me a better deal. If you went to trouble of printing this … thing for me, you could have personalised it a bit more.

3. It is plain bad marketing. As a reasonably smart consumer I do not like to be treated as an idiot. AGL could not offer me a better deal even after discounting the plan that I was on. This begs the question of why I was not on a cheaper plan to begin with. Do you overcharge all of your customers and then offer then a discount back to the standard rates when they want to switch?

But I digress, that is an issue of its own that I really don’t care about. And the reason for my not caring is because I will now actively seek to switch my gas service from AGL as well as electricity. I do not wish to give my business to a company that send such snide and contemptuous letters to their customers.

Just in case I did not make my point clear. I will not give my business to AGL ever again purely as a result of this stupid letter.

Regards,

Igor Zevaka

UPDATE: I do feel like I overreacted a little bit. To AGL’s credit I got a call later on offering a 7% discount on my gas which I took, plus they were competitive anyway. I am not angry any more, so I’ll give em another chance.