At 8 am this morning I received a SMS text message from O2 to inform me that today was the day I could upgrade on line and get my new iphone 3g which would be delivered on Friday morning to my front door.
This was the third text from O2 who had been keeping me up to date with the launch - so far so good, I have mentioned before that they seem pretty good to me, I always have a signal, get a good service and have very little cause for complaint with them as a network and have recommended them to friends and family.
I followed the link provided on the text on my computer and reached the very pretty upgrade online screen. I then entered my mobile number and also immediately received a text with my upgrade code, all working, nice Ajax technology on the website screen - most impressive . . . . . . . .
However, after some 8 hours, 11 different upgrade codes sent to my current iphone and also reaching the point of putting in my credit card to pay for the upgrade a painful 5 seperate times, the system of course just wasnt up to it and crashed each and every time. Even the failover system kept going down.
A call to the O2 customer services team connected me after 23 minutes on hold to a very helpful but clearly battle worn representative who answered with the question 'hello are you trying to upgrade your iphone'.
Upon confirming I was, a dejected and obviously well verbally abused person answered that they had overwhelming response and the website couldn't cope - they couldn't answer if any of my attempts were successful, they didn't know if my credit card had been charged at all and couldn't give me any information about anything to do with the iphone 3g - not even if you could get a white 16gig. Finally, they couldn't take my order and they actually didn't have any more information. . . . . I just didnt have the heart to get stroppy.
And so now the website shows that they are sold out and to go back on the 10th July.
Here I sit, a loyal O2 customer who has paid for the 8gig iphone, then paid again to upgrade to the 16gig iphone and now is willing to pay yet again for the 3g 16gig iphone - but they wont take my order. Boo hoo.
More importantly than me not getting a nice new toy - its 2008, this is possibly the biggest launch of a mobile phone, a hyped up phone which is only available to loyal iphone users, online. I cant even go to an O2 shop and give them my money for a new one.
O2 did everything right with the SMS marketing, getting the website together early with information - and then completely let all that down by an inadequate web site which couldn't cope with the amount of hits they were obviously going to get. I would be very interested to hear what they actually had in place from an eCommerce perspective to cope with the demand - bottom line, I fear they didn't ramp up anything.
This I can kind of forgive, its one peak of demand that to make an expensive investment in ecommerce ramp up might not be commercially viable, but surely, its not rocket science to have a backup plan in place to enable the iphone customer service team to take upgrade requests manually - thats just simple, even if they take the details and confirm you are registered and will get one ASAP - that would be better than this quite frankly shambolic experience.
It is however, the harsh bottom line that really does come into play at this point. O2 have me for 18 months with my iphone contract, they have had my 8gig money, they have then had my 16gig money and they know full well that even though this has happened, I will pay for the 3G iphone as well. At this point I am suspecting that only a limited number of phones will be available at launch and regardless of the PR and marketing weasel words about rewarding loyal iphone customers - its new customers that O2 really want. Of course the really annoying part of this is, I have to pay the same amount for the new iPhone 3g as a 'brand new customer' and I have to sign a new 18 month contract just like a 'brand new customer' - So why can I only upgrade online with a site completely under engineered to cope?
UPDATE: It would seem that I am not alone . . . http://www.tuaw.com/2008/07/07/o2-iphone-pre-orders-not-going-well/
And
Vodafone New Zealand are struggling aswell. Just remembered they were anouncing plan details today at 10am - checked their site at 10:30 (forgot the time -playing with Evernote!!) and their whole site is down...... Only 3 days to go and no plan details.
Posted by: Alex Ingram | July 07, 2008 at 23:35