You might think that after three previous iPhone launches AT&T would have streamlined their online ordering system so that it could handle massive amounts of traffic. Well, guess what? The iPhone 4 pre-launch is filled with just as much mayhem and confusion as launch one was. Perhaps even More.
Within minutes of adding the iPhone 4 to its online store this morning, AT&T's website slowed to a crawl. Within an hour you could forget about pre-ordering your iPhone 4. The system load was so bad that it brought their entire system to a standstill. Within their retail stores the overload was so bad that it crippled their operating system and left them unable to assist customers. Forget ordering an iPhone 4, store representatives could not even open new accounts for non iPhone loyalists. A source told me that by noon a company wide email had bent sent out instructing stores to immediately STOP taking iPhone 4 orders. Are you kidding me?!
I've been an AT&T customer for many years, so let's cut to the chase. There is absolutely no excuse for the powers at be at AT&T to be so incredibly unprepared for the launch of the fourth iPhone. This is not their first rodeo! They have had years to reprise, revamp, upgrade, check and re-check their systems to make sure the chaos and mayhem that ensued today never happened. Today, AT&T screwed the pooch, big time! They brought business in their stores to a standstill, and the very online systems that should have been in place to ease the burden of the retail stores, failed. The result in my opinion should be considered a catastrophic failure of organization and planning and should result in numerous forced job losses at the highest levels. There is no discernible excuse for this, to say the least, system implosion. They have cost themselves many sales today and have endeared themselves no one, least of all the loyal customers that have been putting up with their repeated failures and shortcomings for years and years.
Well, long story short, they just don't get it. The boneheads in upper management at AT&T clearly do not know the first thing about customer service or the incompetency in which "WE" the customer view many of their operational decisions. They must become intimately familiar and learn what the term 'Customer Loyalty" means. The iPhone will forever not be their meal ticket. When that day comes and Apple is loyal no more, AT&T may possibly drop to the lowest customer retention rate of all U.S. wireless carriers. For that, they will have only themselves to blame.
