The IT Nerd

…. And we had an entertaining time getting it. Due to last night’s experience, we made the decision to go the the Rogers store and wait outside at 8:30 AM. The logic being is that we’d be one of the first in line when the store opened at 10AM which meant that we could leverage the fact that very few people would be activating iPhones. Thus we would avoid the possibility that Rogers activation system would crash under the load of activations.

We got there just after 8:30 and there was nobody in line. It was raining which made it less than fun to say the least, but my wife had me drop her off in front of the store and then sent me to get coffee and bagels at the local Tim Horton’s. She also needed me to get gas as well as she was going out of town later that day. After doing that I came back just after 9 and she was still the only person in line.

So far, so good.

About 9:30, a Rogers employee (in fact, the one who turned us away the night before) came up and asked us if we drove or walked over. When we said that we drove he told us to wait in our car and when the store opened, we’d be first in line regardless of who was out front at that time. Now that is good customer service which was refreshing given the way they handled things yesterday. So we did that and returned to the front of the store just before 10AM. When the store opened, we were ushered to the front of the line and within 2 minutes my wife was receiving her iPhone 5. Another 10 minutes, they were able to swap the SIM cards (as the iPhone 5 uses a MicroSIM as opposed to the regular SIM that her Palm Centro used) and within a minute of that, voice services were live. Data services appeared about 10 minutes later. The only thing they were not able to do was change her plan to a data package with at least 1GB of data. For that we would have to call the Rogers call center. We found that to be weird as a Rogers store that is able to do a SIM card swap in their system should be able to do plan changes as well. It seemed like going to a car dealer to buy a new car, but being sent to a tire shop to get wheels. It didn’t make sense. But at least we were further ahead than yesterday.

We returned home and called Rogers. In fact we had to call them twice as the first time around, the menu options were so confusing that we went to the wrong place. Once we pushed the right buttons to get us to the right place, we waited for 5 minutes to get a live human on the phone. Not a big deal as we’ve been on hold with Rogers for as long as 15 minutes just waiting for someone to pick up the phone. The agent that greeted us seemed pleasant enough and did his best to work with my wife to find her the best deal. That turned out to be a plan with 6GB of data and better evening and weekend options. The cost was just short of $80 a month. I advised her to go for it as I believe that it’s wise to start with more data than you need and then scale back once you get a sense of what your data usage will be like in a typical month. One thing that I will note is that he tried to upsell her to a second iPhone for me or a tablet or a Rocket Stick and he was a tad bit aggressive about it. I do get that these guys are likely on commission and they have to try to get you to buy as much as possible. But it was a real turn off for us and they really need to tone it down a bit. In any case, after being put on hold and several text messages later, we had the plan changed.

So at least now my wife has an iPhone 5 and as I type this she’s off on her overnight trip. I’ve already set up her e-mail and set her up on the iCloud. Meanwhile I’m working to move her contacts and calendar items over to it via the iCloud which is proving to be a challenge.

Stay tuned for that part of the story.

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.

…has her receiving a call from Rogers today. Apparently she can pick up her new iPhone tomorrow before 8PM as the a nearby Rogers store. She has to bring ID and they’ll discuss her plan options and the like at that time. One thing that my wife said to me is that this was well handled by Rogers and the process has gone very well to this point. The fact that she said that is kind of shocking to me as my wife is no fan of Rogers. I’m also surprised she got it so soon seeing as she had reservation number 1926.

Tune in tomorrow to see how this ends.

If you recall from my previous post detailing my wife’s journey to replace her Palm Centro with an iPhone 5, she got an e-mail saying that it shipped today. That kind of shocked me as Rogers had issues getting stock of iPhones in the past. I guess that Apple wants to get these in as many hands as possible. There was no arrival date mentioned on the e-mail other than this:

Shipments should arrive within four days.

It also said this:

We recommend you wait until you hear from a store representative, who will call you to confirm when it has arrived in store.

We’ll see when it arrives and I’ll update this story at that point with what happens next.

UPDATE: My wife has asked me to mention that she was also sent a text message by Rogers to let her know that the smartphone has shipped.

As her current phone which is a Palm Centro is on it’s last legs. She had no desire to line up outside an Apple store to try and get one, nor does she have any desire to drive from store to store in hopes of finding one. So she leveraged a new feature that Rogers has to reserve her phone using her MyRogers account. That’s a good thing for her as she hates calling Rogers with a passion.

The upside? The process was very straightforward. You pick the phone (in her case a 32GB black iPhone 5), select the Rogers store location that you want to pick it up from, and agree to a $40 reservation fee and you’re done. You get a reservation number (and associated documentation that you can print for your records) and you’ll get an e-mail when the smartphone ships to your local Rogers store. Sounds civilized doesn’t it?

The downside? The MyRogers site was extremely slow when my wife did all of the above (about 8:30 AM this morning). What should have taken 5 minutes by her estimation took 15. I’m guessing it’s the traffic that’s tied to the iPhone 5 launch. After all, everyone and their dog wants an iPhone 5 right now.

Here’s another thing to know. If you order your iPhone on September 14 and the iPhone launches on September 21, Rogers guarantees that iPhone will shipped to the store on or before October 4. If you order your iPhone on September 21, Rogers guarantees that iPhone will be shipped to the store on or before October 4. If it does not launch on time, Rogers will credit your account $50. The $50 credit will appear on one of the next two invoices following the activation of the reserved device on your account.

I’ll be following my wife’s progress and let you how all of this plays out.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the $40 reservation fee will be credited back to your Rogers account once the device has shipped.