AT&T suffers wrath of bloggers over activation issues
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By Steve Ragan Jul 2, 2007, 15:55 GMT
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Business users are at fault because their lack of imagination. You cannot just buy a phone and expect that you can make changes to your company phone account.
I would check with a company telecommunication manager first if I can add or remove any services.
Those users are not responsible. Any company property like phones, computers are for conducting company business only and any misuse could subject to termination of an employee.
I used AT&T for analog cell a few years back and was so frustrated and disgruntled by their customer service that I not only canceled my account, but vowed never to use their service again.
Sounds like that decision would still stand today.
From the article: 'For the large volume of users, most were able to use the iPhone the same day they got it. The minority of the iPhone users who are still waiting are making the most noise, and rightfully so.'
Statistically, if you bought an iPhone everything worked out. It seems to me that a lot of the problems (including mine) are edge cases, usually in situations where the person activating the phone isn't the account holder (either because of business accounts, family plans, etc.).
My main gripe hasn't been the problem -- new system, new phone, double plus media hype conditions -- hello, problems. No surprise that there's been problems, I'm used to problems.
What blows my mind is how Apple/AT&T seem to have completely failed to design for the inevitable problems that do occur. If I understand what's going on correctly, if there is any problem activating your phone, your order is placed on hold with no notification. I've known my order was on hold since last night, but iTunes still says my activation is being processed (but obviously, it's not).
And no email has been sent to me yet, even though the order has been on hold for at least 12 hours. It seems to me that if Apple/AT&T had planned their system to include notifying customers that a problem had occurred, please call this number to fix it the angry minority would be much less angry about the whole affair.
In summary:
Kafkaesque situation = Angry customer
It surprises me that the above is an obvious, basic tenet of customer service in the digital age, but so few companies realize it and seem to feel no regret in subjecting their customers to incomprehensible customer service procedures.
I too am frustrated by ATT customer service and switched to T-mobile. ATT should think about improving customer service. IT does help a lot if you can answer and resolve the customer issue without letting them wait for hours and sometimes they say that it is resolved but it is not. You still get an overcharged bill and you have to call again wait for hours and then again hope that it will be taken care off in next bill. I too will never switch to ATT. I would have for iPhone but I am scared off with word ATT.
A year ago I had no problems porting my phone number from Cingular to T-Mobile (I left Cingular because I moved to Chicago and their coverage there is terrible), so I got the iPhone, back to AT&T. Guess what? They said they can't port my phone because it's 'out of market' (from out of Chicago), why didn't I have this problem when I switched? So I have to call do a lot of tricky things to get in the 'market area' like give them an old address as my actual address, just so they would approve switching my number's area code. They did, but they have to ship me a NEW sim card by mail, which will take 5-7 business days. Considering there's a Holiday in the middle of this week, it'd be two to three weeks since I get that SIM card and port my number. This is stuff I expect from Microsoft, not from Apple, so there you go Apple, thanks for partnering with AT&T.
P.S. AT&T coverage in Chicago remains awful. I can hardly get a signal inside a building, and it's the only service that has that problem.
I bought my wife an iPhone Friday and we had no problems activating it. Granted, the 'This may take up to 3 minutes' message timed out, stating we'd be sent an email shortly when activation was complete, but that took no more than 10 minutes. We are existing AT&T non-business customers, which may explain part of the smoothness of the process. Overall the activation experience was great and the time delay gave us time to get her PC set up with Outlook, etc., in preparation for the first sync with the device.
Basically, I have to agree with the users being somewhat at fault with many of these problems, obviously if you're not approved to make changes to your phone plan, you will have issues activating a device that requires added services, as you are not authorized to add said services. DUH.
I waited in line for six hours for an iPhone, but then couldn't turn it on until Sunday. Very frustrating. Customer service couldn't do anything and the whole thing was a mess. You can only move that slider back and forth before you want to throw the thing to the ground in a hail of touch screen shrapnel.
But, I have to admit, once I got it activated on Sunday (two days later!) it is so beautiful and fun to play with it was hard to stay mad at them. I probably would have angrily returned any other product, but this thing is just so damn sexy. It was worth the wait, although if you would have asked me Saturday I would have told you different. They really should have been prepared for thousands of people to activate at once.
My experience was flawless in activating my iPhone. This device is everything and more than you would expect and worth every penny. at this very moment i am very comfortably writing this blog from my throne,I hope the rest of you enjoy as much as i have been. Christmas came a little early this year.
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Oh wellJul 2nd, 2007 - 16:32:11
I got mine running in under 5 minutes. I guess I was one of the lucky ones.
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