So the iPhone goes on sale on September 19, with pre-orders being accepted as of the 12th.
I thought it would be interesting to see how the different operators would handle this opportunity, either to gain new customers or upsell existing ones.
To start with, I am on the O2 network, and have been for years, which has been a poor experience and can be best described as “the devil you know”. Since I am an existing customer with an open monthly contract and having clearly expressed my intention to move to the iPhone 6 once it becomes available to O2 in earlier engagements, I was hoping their CRM systems would have highlighted me as a potential target. On the contrary, total silence. Very disappointing, I then even signed up to be notified, again to no avail. On the 12th itself, O2’s website went down so I could not even get pricing information. In conclusion, failure all round.
Vodafone was my other potential candidate. Key reasons are that they have good infrastructure and I used to be on their network until they decided not to offer the iPhone when it was introduced ... actually it was until O2 undercut them in the bidding process with Apple.
Be that as it may, I duly filled out the “register your interest” forms and waited for the reply. This is what I got ...
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A generic "Hello" ... with no name? No links? And the text of the mail is about as inviting as a champagne reception on an ants nest.
Oh well, obviously the folks at Vodafone were not only very excited about the upcoming iPhone launch but also thrilled by the prospect of getting some new customers (note: sarcasm intentional). I then received a text stating that my iPhone was in touching distance, with some pricing and legal mumbo jumbo. Long and behold I also got a call on the 12th from a very nice lady trying to sign me up, but failed as I could not get to the pricing information (family plan) that I was looking for.
Irregardless this raised another issue I have in this case - when you engage with a customer in one channel of communication and then switch channels, in this instance from email to text to phone, how trustworthy, professional, and customer friendly is the engagement? How would this relationship, if entered into, work out? The prospect of having to switch from email, to text, to voice messages, to jungle drums in order to communicate does not appeal. Sorry Vodafone.
During the Apple keynote, mention was made of the ability to place phone calls over WiFi, instead of the airwaves. I had seen that technology many years ago in a Cisco presentation when John Chambers had a call bouncing around different transmission technologies. I know this is not an Apple development but as a feature it is very interesting to me, mainly because the O2 signal in my house is quite poor (even though I am 300m away from a transmission tower). The EE network was mentioned as a deployer of that particular capability and that is how they came on my radar.
I promptly registered with them, I found their website a bit klunky and amateurish, but that is just a personal view. After preregistration, I received a confirmation that my details had been received - bit of a shock because no one else did that! On the 12th , I received the email from EE showing the iPhone 6 and 6+ and the following
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Their CRM systems work, I got addressed by name, lovely, link embedded, good, featured USP, excellent, pricing plan, very good, and the ability to trade in my old phone, superb. What a deal, fantastic. All systems should be go, except for one thing.
EE has a family pricing plan, which then led me to reassess my priorities. Having a single plan, for voice, text and data, makes a lot of sense - I’ve got 3 phones on separate contracts. So I got bogged down in comparison shopping for those plans. By the time I was able to seek out the information, the shipping dates for the phones had already moved to 2-3 weeks.
Obviously I did not move fast enough. Now I might as well wait until the units are actually in store and get a proper look and feel.
Oh why not buy a Samsung, HTC or any other make? Have you seen a Samsung after a years use? Not pretty.
Just to close out the point. Considering the infrastructure, the expertise and capital tied into CRM systems, and the fact that the product launch was expected, I find it astonishing how poor the customer journey has been and the lack of urgency by the operators.
But then may be the operators just hate the iPhone too.