Oh, and posting from a false email address too? I’m glad I didn’t publish your other, abusive, comment. That kind of gutlessness isn’t welcome here.

Ah, but it’s cleverly worded, folksy and “real.” So we should all appreciate that. Ha.

Vodafone’s paper-based bill lives on
Media release: 2 February 2009
Well, that didn’t work, did it?

Late last year we announced we’d introduce a new online billing process that meant customers would be able to receive a TXT or email alert about their bill and could go online to pay it.

Nice idea, we thought. People will like that we’re thinking of the trees and the convenience factor will be a big plus. Certainly the trial group liked it, so we rolled it out to the public. To encourage customers along we also said we’d charge $1.50 per month for those customers who still want a paper bill, with that charge kicking in some time in the first half of this year.

And that’s where the wheels came off.

Our customers have told us they quite like the idea of online billing but they hate, hate, HATE the idea of being charged to receive a paper bill.

Did we mention they hate it? Well they do. And we’re going to listen to what they say.

So, being the company we are we’ve decided to do a U-turn, an about face, a 180: now you can get your bill in the post each month if you so want, and it won’t cost a penny.

In fact, we’ll go a step further – customers can opt to carry on getting the email or TXT alerts, they can get a paper bill posted out to them or they can chose to get their bill emailed out to them in PDF format.

And we’d like to say sorry for all the trouble. We’re not perfect. We’re only human but hopefully we’re grown up enough to ‘fess up when we make a mistake.

Of course there are communications professionals who revel in this sort of language and believe it informative and relevant.

(I appreciated your candor)

But so what? Sure, in the communication stakes it reads like a bowl of tepid tripe. But I’d wager anyone who actually gives a shit about dull, corporate PR statements like this just expects such a committee-sanctioned pastiche to be that dull anyway. And if I were one of them (which I’m not) I’d probably think something fishy was going on if senior management started talking to me as if they weren’t a droid, wouldn’t you?

But the blame lies squarely with the people right at the top of both organisations.

I’ve been a journalist for 30 years, covered technology for most of that time and now run a freelance writing business. In my experience anyone who departs from the corporate bs line would quickly be out of a job. The bosses want it that way. They also want journalists to go away and write the story that way.

If, as a journalist, you ring them (and rarely you may be answered) they’ll try talk in that kind of language, then beg you to change their words after the fact to make it read that way. Or ring up and abuse you went their real words appear in print.

I’ve also worked as a journalist in companies where the management thinks that way. I’ve advised them to speak fluently and openly in their own language, but they are much happier hiding behind the bs party line.

There are many PR people who deserve to be taken out and shot for crimes against humanity AND the English language, but in this case, I fear you just want to shoot the messenger. As a journalist, that’s something I’m all too familiar with.

The problem is right at the top.

There does seem to be an immense fear in corporations — and government bureaucracies too for that matter — of speaking in a concrete, straightforward way. I know that in some organisations the lawyers don’t help, insisting that everything be as vague as possible so they can’t be pinned down on anything specific later on. But there’s still so much that could be said here, even without causing “problems” — and even if the main aim is to talk up Telstra.

I choose note to think about the mug shots.