Ringtones Newsletter
Issue 35, June 2012
In This Issue
- Dialing In by CEO John Marick »
- Feature Focus: Introducing Free Activation! »
- Customer Star: Douglas J. Jamieson II »
- Your Questions Answered »
- Refer A Friend: An Easy $10 for You »
Consumer Cellular Home | Newsletter Archive
What’s New
- The Lighter Side of No Contracts Read More »
- Our 3rd Annual Grandparents Day Contest Begins July 1st! Read More »
We’re Here to Help
In addition to the extensive support you'll find on our website, check out these other resources:
Tuesday Tip on our Facebook page
How-To videos on our YouTube page
Interesting Tidbits on Twitter
Refer A Friend, Earn Ten
Give yourself and your friends $10! Refer someone who signs up with Consumer Cellular and you’ll receive a $10 credit on your upcoming invoice. Your friends will be happy, too. Not only will they get fantastic cell service at great rates from the best cell phone service company in America, they'll also get a $10 credit on their first invoice. Don’t wait to share the wealth! The best gifts don’t require contracts.
Want to tell a friend? Click here to send an email.
Dialing In
by John Marick
I speak often of staying connected to one's family, which is certainly an enormous benefit of wireless mobile communication and the Internet. Today, you can not only talk to family members over long distances, but you can write them notes and send them pictures. And you can do all of this in as close to real time as technology can make it happen, holding a device in the palm of your hand.
The month of June is noted, in part, for two celebrations often associated with families. The first is Father's Day, which this year takes place on Sunday, the 17th of June, and celebrates all the fathers in your life. If you can't be with your family members in person this year, you can still talk with them and share photos over a cell phone or smartphone. You can hear each other's voices and see each other's faces, clearly and in color, as if you're in the same room.
The second celebration occurs a few days later, on June 20th, and is a little more open-ended. I'm talking about what meteorologists refer to as Summer Solstice, otherwise known as the longest day of the year or the first day of summer. I consider this date more open-ended because, well, summer begins for each of us in a different way and on a different day. Summer is often when we take memorable trips with our families or make trips to visit them. Summer means more time with the kids and grandkids. No matter how you plan to spend your summer, remember to take a fully-charged phone with you, as well as your charger.
And don't forget, coming soon it's the return of the Grandparents Day Contest. Our popular contest opens on July 1st, so start thinking about your family stories now.
Staying in touch, staying connected… from one generation to the next. If you ask me, that's exactly what it means to be part of a family.
John
For more comments and industry insights from John, read his latest blog.
Feature Focus
Introducing Free Activation!
In our on-going effort to continually improve our service and ensure we're meeting your needs, effective immediately we will no longer charge an activation fee. Put another way, our customers will enjoy free activation. And that's across the board for all of our phones, even when you purchase a SIM card to use in your own phone.
So, how's it work? If you're a current customer and want to upgrade to a newer phone, all you pay is the price of the phone itself; the same holds true for new customers. You'll still need to follow the usual activation process. But, and here's the real beauty, it's now free and "free" is always a great price.
Paired with our no contract service, usage alerts, and free upgrade service, our new no activation fee policy makes it easier than ever for you to manage your cell phone expenses and budget. You're totally in control. And that's the way it should be.
Freedom from activation fees is just another word for friendly customer service.
Customer Star
Douglas J. Jamieson II
Whenever Consumer Cellular customer Douglas Jamieson, of Michigan, contacts us, he feels more than a wee bit of friendship.
"Consumer Cellular personnel are courteous, kind, and cheerful! If I have a problem, they go out of their way to accommodate me and resolve the situation," said Douglas. "It's like having close friends who are willing to go the extra mile to make sure I am happy."
Douglas had been using cell phones for a decade before signing up with Consumer Cellular. When he joined our service, he chose our Anywhere 700 plan for minutes and our Connect Lite! package for Web browsing and messaging. Additionally, he picked an LG Thrive smartphone to take advantage of the latest technology. Although Douglas is new to messaging, so far he claims to be enjoying the experience.
Now retired, Douglas lists his favorite trip as one he made to Scotland where he began working on the Jamieson Family Genealogy. He was so successful in tracing his family roots that he now has over 700 names and 50 family surnames in his family report.
He returned to Scotland a second time to research a connection to his family name. Douglas found the cemetery where his great-great grandparents are buried in the town of Old Deer, a small farming community north of Aberdeen.
With grandchildren of his own, Douglas fully understands and appreciates the importance of a family's legacy.
"I am encouraging all of my friends to give Consumer Cellular a shot," said Douglas. "I like everything about their plans and do not think you can get a better deal anywhere else."
Consumer Cellular may not be a clan but our heart is always in the highlands of service. And when it comes to serving our customers, we hope they will always see us the way Douglas sees us.
Your Questions Answered
In each issue we ask our Support team to recommend — and answer — commonly asked questions about our products or services.
I'm planning a road trip this summer and will be spending a lot of time away from home. I'm not sure how this trip will impact my cell phone usage. Can I change my plan while on the road?
You bet and as often as you like. You can change your Consumer Cellular cell phone plan at any time from your computer or smartphone – even retroactively - to save money. Unlike other cell phone service providers, we let you change your plan, as needed, without penalty.
You know your usage needs better than we do. And we give you three quick and easy ways to change your plan: by logging into your account from your computer, dialing 611 from your cell phone, or, if you have a smartphone, by simply using the free My Consumer Cellular app.
To see how easy it is to change your plan, please watch this YouTube video.
Have more questions, need more answers?
Go online and see the answers to our most frequently asked questions.
What’s New…
The Lighter Side of No Contracts
If you visited our Facebook page recently, you probably already know about one of our recent contests. Well, the results are in and congratulations go to Michele M. from Rancho Cucamonga, California. By sharing our "No Contracts" cartoon with others, Michele won a free Kindle Fire.
Our Facebook page is a great place to get the latest Consumer Cellular news and to share tips with other customers. Just go to Facebook and click the like button to follow us. We'll take care of the rest, with updates, videos, conversations and special offers.
If you've ever tried to extract yourself from a two-year cell phone contract, you can appreciate the dilemma facing the cartoon couple rolling a boulder up the side of a mountain. Our no contracts approach is effortless — and painless — for customers. And that's just one reason why for two years in a row we're the #1 rated, no contract cell phone service provider in the nation.
Our 3rd Annual Grandparents Day Contest Begins July 1st!
Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys… start your stories. Our third annual Grandparents Day Contest begins on Sunday, July 1st, and it's destined to be our biggest and most exciting yet.
We inaugurated our annual storytelling contest in 2010 to honor the role grandparents play in families. The results that first year surprised us: we received nearly 500 entries and thousands of votes were cast. If those results surprised us, the following year we were stunned and thrilled to receive more than 2,000 entries!
The rules are simple. Our Grandparents Day contest is open to anyone who is 13 years or older. There's no entry fee and you don't have to be a Consumer Cellular customer to participate. In other words, it couldn't be any easier. Just write an essay or create a video telling us your grandparent-related story. Who knows? You could win a $10,000 vacation!
Entries with the most votes will become our top finalists. Remember, the longer your entry remains on the contest site, the better your chances of collecting votes. Start working on your family story today and be ready to submit your essay or video on July 1st.
Visit our website for more information about the contest.
