The IT Nerd

It was all going so well. My wife reserved her new iPhone 5 online using Rogers reservation system. She got a text message and an e-mail saying it shipped, And far earlier than we ever expected it to. She also got a phone call telling her to pick up her iPhone today. All of this was giving my wife who is no fan of Rogers a really good feeling about Rogers.

That changed tonight.

We arrived at our local Rogers store at 6:45 tonight. Since they close at 9PM it seemed like more than enough time. There were three people in line ahead of us and a bunch of people sitting around the store. I should mention that the store had just been renovated to fit that new retail concept that I’ve covered previously. We just assumed that we should get in line and wait our turn. Half an hour later we get to the front of the line. My wife presented her reservation info and her drivers license. That’s when she was told that we wasted half an hour standing in line. There apparently was a list that they were taking of names of people who like my wife had come to pick up an iPhone that was reserved through Rogers reservation system. Even if you were on the list, chances are my wife would not get her phone tonight as it would take up to an hour to activate the phone.

Clearly Rogers has yet again managed to bungle an iPhone launch. A search of Twitter pulls up tweets like these:

No service on Mabes IPhone 5. Rogers stating they have a 6hr delay due to all the activations. Wow! It’s been 5 1/2 hrs so far.

Still having to type angry Rogers tweets on my iPhone 3 while my iPhone 5 sits waiting as Rogers tries to reboot their Windows database-Wow!

Walked in to Rogers got iPhone 5 after work no hassles. Just have to wait 6hours for tech sup to set it up overnight

No iPhone 5 for me today. Note to self DO NOT reserve the #iPhone 5S from #rogers next year.

Man, #Rogers still swamped by iPhone 5 activations. I thought pre-ordering it would make it easier…

Rogers system is down cant get the iPhone 5 🙁

#Rogers is no better brutal customer service and been waiting 5 hours for them to figure out activating my iPhone today.

Wow, over heard at a Rogers store its taking an hour to get through to the call centre and then longer to activate iPhone 5.Could be 2morrow

Clearly Rogers has issues. The sad part is that this has happened to them before. When the iPhone 4 launched, they had similar issues. You’d think they’d learn from that and make sure that they could handle the volume of activations. But it’s clear that they didn’t. Not only that, they should have informed people coming into the store that they had issues and they might not get their phone tonight rather than have them wait for half an hour to find that out. That fact that they didn’t in our case (and many others in the store who were as frustrated as we were) is an epic customer service fail.

So here’s the plan. My wife and I are going to be back at our local Rogers store tomorrow morning around 8:30. Why? So we can be one of the first when the store opens at 10AM. Perhaps then she might have a shot at getting her iPhone 5. If that doesn’t work out, then she’s going to try again on Tuesday because she has a day off on Tuesday.

Oh, here’s some free advice for Rogers:

• Your reservation system should make it easier to get a phone. For example, how about booking an appointment to get the phone rather than telling people such as my wife that they can come in “anytime” to pick up the phone. That would avoid a lot of ticked off customers.
• Beef up your activation system. If failed when the iPhone 4 launched. It failed you again today. You clearly have an issue with it and you need to fix it as being unable to activate phones in a timely manner is not a great way to retain customers. Also, I’ll save you the trouble of searching Twitter. Bell doesn’t seem to have their customers complaining about activating iPhones and whatever issues Telus have with iPhone activations were resolved in a timely manner.
• If you do have problems, your store employees need to be up front about it. They need to not have their customers wait in line for half an hour to be ticked off when they do find out. That’s just customer service 101.
• When my wife talked to the Rogers store rep. over the phone yesterday, she was repeatedly told that she should just show up and she would be taken care of. Thus having this experience really casts a negative light on anything that is said by anyone working for Rogers. Take home message? Given the popularity of the iPhone, they should have said something else so that they don’t set expectations in the minds of their customers that they cannot meet.

We will see what tomorrow brings. In the meantime, my wife is back to thinking negative things about Rogers. That’s a shame as because they were actually really close to changing her opinion of them. But quote my wife “Rogers is just being Rogers.”

Not good if you’re win hearts and minds.

This entry was posted on September 21, 2012 at 10:01 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags iPhone 5, Rogers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.