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Here’s some shocking news – the level of organization and coordination between Apple and AT&T for the iPhone 4 launch can be described in just two words: Epic Fail.
For three years now, these two massive and massively profitable organizations have been close (and even exclusive) partners on the iPhone. You would think they’ve had ample time, and have more than ample resources, to make the launches of big new iDevices a smooth and slick operation by now. Nothing could be further from the truth in my experience.
My experience over the last 3 years worth of iPhone launches has shown me that these are things that stand out in terms of the preparation and knowledge levels of ‘foot soldier’ type staff at Apple and AT&T leading up to these events:
— They are often almost entirely clueless less than 24 hours before a major new iPhone launch – about levels of stock they will have, how lines of reserved vs non-reserved will be handled, how upgrades work, and so on.
— Not only does the left hand not know what the right hand is doing, but you are very unlikely to be able to get a consistent answer on any even slightly challenging question when talking to two or more customer service or store staff members about it. One CS rep will happily tell you today is Wednesday and they are certain of it. Call back 10 minutes later and another rep will guarantee you that it is in fact Friday and he will note that on your account for you. Apple reps will tell you things like ‘There is nothing we can do on that subject, you really need to speak to AT&T’ – and AT&T will tell you the exact opposite.
— You’ll often find that CS reps are unaware even of launch information publicly announced and posted on the web by Apple and AT&T corporate. In other words, they often know less than you and I do sitting at home and browsing the web.
By now you may be asking ‘what brought this all on?’ or similar. The answer is my experience trying to work out how to buy the new iPhone 4 this year (stacked on top of similarly horrendous experiences in the past).
My wife and I are on a family plan with AT&T. In the past we have played the hand-me-down game with iPhones – using our upgrade eligibility on an older iPhone to get the newest at the more attractive price and doing a little bit of phone number swapping with AT&T so that we each keep our numbers and I take the newest phone model. This year we’ll do the same thing, upgrading on my wife’s iPhone 3G, handing her down my 3GS, with the iPhone 4 going to me.
The phone number swapping part of things is more complicated this year because the iPhone 4 doesn’t use the same SIM card type as previous iPhone models – so we’ve had to spend a lot of time talking to both Apple and AT&T to determine the easiest way to do this. Here’s how that has gone:
— Apple store staff unanimously (which is rare) tell me that nobody will not be allowed to walk out of the store with an iPhone 4 without it being activated. So I cannot take the new phone to a local AT&T store to do the activation and number swapping my wife and I need to do.
— Local AT&T store staff say they are very happy to do the required number swapping for us, but they need an extra Micro-SIM card in order to do this. Their initial suggestion was to ask Apple store staff to provide this card as they are far more likely to have enough spare stock of these. Apple store staff do not agree – they say they have no idea at all (less than 24 hours prior to launch day) whether they will have any spare cards. Their suggestion to make things smoother is to ask AT&T to just swap the upgrade eligibility on our two iPhones so that the new iPhone 4 gets activated with the correct phone number on it right off the bat and no number switching is required. They assure me this is something that AT&T have done in the past and should be happy to do. AT&T customer service says the complete opposite – swapping the upgrade eligibility is impossible and we should be able to easily do the number swapping and get a spare Micro-SIM from their store.
— A final call to AT&T customer service ends up with a ‘supervisor’ on the line and a local store staff member conferenced in. The CS supervisor insists that corporate intranet documentation clearly states that Micro-SIM cards will be available at their major stores on launch day. The staff member from our local major store says no; he says they ‘should have’ some on launch day, but they might not actually have them until five days later – just as they now won’t have any iPhone 4’s available for anyone who did not pre-order.
— After having explained the history of our issue and question at length, AT&T’s best suggestion is ‘Just hold off on activating the new iPhone and bring it in to us to activate and swap numbers etc’. Right. At which point I am back at square one – and wondering which part of ‘You cannot physically walk out of an Apple Store without activating the phone’ they did not understand.
The above is just a very condensed version of the time-consuming and frustrating process of trying to work this subject out. The entire experience has been nearly identical to past iPhone launches and even the recent iPad launch. When I lived in the UK you would hear the phrase that someone ‘couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery’ to describe how much of a disorganized idiot someone was. It seems a very apt phrase for Apple and AT&T at times like these launches. Except this isn’t one or a handful of disorganized and not very bright people; this is two enormous and enormously rich organizations, with three years worth of practice at this stuff. And they are still diabolically bad at communicating with their own personnel.
Nearly everyone I’ve dealt with at ground level – in customer service and stores – has been pleasant and has done their very best to be very helpful. But they’re unable to be of any help because their companies have set them up to fail every time. They just don’t give them the knowledge to succeed, or even come close.
This is not a case of AT&T letting down the side for Apple as they’re so often accused of. It is a case of both companies miserably failing to make these launches easy for their own people or their customers and potential customers.
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TAGS: Apple, AT&T, iPhone 4 launch
