July 2, 2007
AT&T, not Apple, botches iPhone launch
As expected, Apple has hit a home run with the launch of its iPhone, but AT&T countered with a pop fly to center over the weekend. Some first-day iPhoners waited hours and even days in some cases before they were able to activate their new gadgets on the AT&T network, causing plenty of frustration for early adopters who camped out ahead of the June 29 launch day.
A friend in my office bought one at the Green Hills Apple store at 7 p.m. Friday not long after the humongous line had dissipated. His wife decided to take the plunge at 10 p.m. the same evening. The family’s first iPhone activated minutes after purchase, but iPhone number two held up until Sunday evening before signing on with AT&T.
It’s never good to generate tons of hype and then have trouble delivering upon the promise, but analyst Rob Enderle makes a solid observation about how both AT&T and Apple can respond:
Depending on how the companies handle customer’s complaints, it could in fact help, he said. If customers feel the company has treated them well, they are more likely to buy and recommend its products in the future. “It doesn’t matter whether your product breaks or not,” Enderle said. “It matters how well you treat your customers.”
I agree. We’re all human and make plenty of mistakes, even big ones. What matters most is how we react when things don’t go the way we planned. People will be more likely to forgive a glitch such as this, in my opinion, if they receive good customer service along the way, but bad customer service can crush even a great product if it is bad enough.
![Rob Robinson](http://thinktrain.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/Rob.jpg")
Everything you always wanted to know about the iPhone Launch at franck perrier said,
July 2, 2007 @ 10:49 pm
[...] sign up to a two-year contract(up to $600) in order to buy the phone - 24h to 48h activation delay with ATT due to overwhelming demand - 47 percent of polled consumers (Expo TV)will wait at least 12 months [...]
Chris said,
July 3, 2007 @ 10:52 am
I think its crazy that people will run out and pay all that money just to have the first I-Phone. Do they not see that there the lab rats getting the first potential peice of crap that was to be the best. Let it sit on the market for a while, then go out and buy it after the bugs are worked out of it, and all the hype is down. Not only is it cheaper then , but it also will be fool proof by then as well.
Rob Robinson said,
July 3, 2007 @ 10:57 am
I completely agree. I’m impressed by the possibilities the iPhone introduces, but I’d rather let someone else sort out the bugs. I’ll stick with my Treo 755p for now.