If the words “Make it Right” trigger a memory of a song from South Park in your head, congratulations, you are not alone. But that is what telecom giant AT&T (T) is out to do with a new plan to offer bill credits to customers in the event of network outages. This move, which should go quite a way toward keeping customers, was met with scorn from investors, who sent shares down fractionally in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.
Stay Ahead of the Market:
- Discover outperforming stocks and invest smarter with Top Smart Score Stocks
- Filter, analyze, and streamline your search for investment opportunities using Tipranks' Stock Screener
Back in February of last year, AT&T found itself neck-deep in a network outage that saw customers completely without service for 12 hours. That meant 92 million calls that did not go out, according to a report from Reuters, and over 25,000 separate incidents of users trying to call 911, but unable to get through. AT&T gave customers credit for a full day of service, and that seemed to, mostly, mollify the crowd.
Now, AT&T plans to codify this example and run it routinely. Now, if there is a network outage lasting even as little as 20 minutes for fiber customers, AT&T will immediately and automatically credit that customer for a full day of service. Wireless customers, however, will have to be out of service for 60 minutes before getting the full day credit. The plan even has a name: AT&T Guarantee.
AT&T Goes RTO
With such a guarantee in place, it will require AT&T’s close attention to ensure that it is not used any more often than necessary. And AT&T has launched its own return-to-office (RTO) initiative as well. Though a report from Business Insider suggests it is not going that well.
The report noted that there were “limited available desks and elevators at some locations,” which made not only getting to the office difficult, but actually accomplishing anything once in the building itself proved a challenge as well. AT&T has plans to address this by “adding capacity,” though one wonders why this capacity was not added before the RTO mandate was released. Worse, AT&T—according to internal documents—was aware of the logjam it was about to create and did so anyway. AT&T knew it was calling in more workers than it actually had workstations for.
Is AT&T Stock a Buy or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on T stock based on 15 Buys and two Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 35.76% rally in its share price over the past year, the average T price target of $27 per share implies 22.5% upside potential.
