Lose Credibility, Lose Leverage – Another real-life example

Well, we hope you didn’t have to read this, “Sidekick customers, during this service disruption, please DO NOT remove your battery, reset your Sidekick, or allow it to lose power.”  That’s the message from T-Mobile and the Sidekick data services provider after a reported “cloud computing” failure, which is expected to cause clients to lose their contacts, calendar entries, and photos.

We now have the latest in a long line of real-life “credibility and leverage” scenarios.  T-Mobile is scrambling to regain credibility and the satisfaction of T-mobile clients.  As part of that scramble, they have offered credits to affected clients.

You may expect to see their competition start advertising something like this: “Your personal information is safe on your phone, and is backed up when you use our service.”  Lose credibility, lose leverage.  The fallout will probably come at contract renewal time for those customers who were hit, who have to decide: Renew, or move to a new carrier?  (td)