The IT Nerd

Since the Apple Watch was announced last fall Rogers has been on the back foot trying to tap dance around the fact that their chief rivals Bell and Telus can support the eSIM technology that it uses and they can’t. Last week Rogers problems increased as Samsung announced the Samsung Galaxy Watch. Guess what? It uses eSIM technology as well. Thus it’s not available on the Rogers network. Something that is confirmed in this Tweet:

If that response sounds familiar, it’s the same one that they’ve been using for months as they’ve tried to tap dance around this issue. But to be fair, Samsung hasn’t announced availability outside the US and Korea. Thus Rogers can’t really comment on a product that technically doesn’t exist yet. But the fact that questions are already popping up about whether Rogers supports this watch, and the fact that Rogers is serving up similar answers isn’t going to help the perception that Rogers is behind the eight ball when it comes to supporting the latest and greatest tech. Plus you can bet that because Telus and Bell who already support eSIM technology are going to be quickly pushing that narrative the second that the Samsung Galaxy Watch does pop up in Canada. Not to mention that we’re likely a month or so away from an Apple press event where the latest version of the Apple Watch will likely appear. All of that will crank up the pressure on Rogers to support eSIM.

Let’s see if Rogers can actually follow through on their promise to get this done in 2018. I for one am skeptical they can, but I am free to be proven wrong.

As frequent readers of this blog will know. Rogers has been very unwilling to say one way or another if they will carry the Apple Watch with LTE. I personally had to switch to Telus to be able to use one, and many others have switched to that carrier or Bell for the same reason. Well, the waters in regards to this may have been muddied further as Rogers have appeared to have altered their talking points. I cite this Tweet as an example:

So, this is how I interpret this:

• Rogers isn’t going to carry the Apple Watch. Which isn’t the biggest deal in the world as you can get it straight from Apple.
• Rogers still plans to roll out “the technology for cellular-enabled wearable tech” in 2018. Which I assume means support for eSIM

However, that isn’t how the universe seems to interpret this. Based on the e-mails that I’ve received over the weekend, the universe interpreting this as “Rogers isn’t going to carry the Apple Watch. So you should move to Telus or Bell.” This impression is being played out on Twitter as well:

Now, not carrying the Apple Watch is not the same as not having support for it. But because Rogers messaging in regards to this issue has been just so horrific from the moment that the Apple Watch with LTE first appeared, it has been conflated to be the same thing. Perhaps if Rogers took my advice which was to come out with a clear statement in terms of their plans for eSIM support ages ago, perhaps we would not be talking about this now. However, there’s more as evidenced by this Tweet:

And:

At this point, Rogers customers really don’t believe what the telco is saying. That’s a problem as customers are assuming the worst and bolting as a result of that.

Rogers, here’s some free advice. You can clear this up right now by coming out with a  clear statement in terms of your plans for eSIM support. Some contrition would be nice as well as I can tell you that your customers are incredibly frustrated. Because what you’re doing isn’t helping you to retain customers. And even if you do, they clearly don’t trust you.

So how about it Rogers?

Even though I am no longer a Rogers wireless customer so that I could get an Apple Watch (review to come in the next couple of weeks by the way), I still follow this story as I get a lot, and I do mean a lot of comments from frustrated Rogers customers on this. As I watch Rogers try to deal with what must be a public relations nightmare, I note a very disturbing trend in terms of how Rogers is responding to this. Rogers seems to be responding in a way that seems to be incredibly tone deaf. Take this response that Rogers served up to a Twitter user:

Justin Prest has a point here. Rogers from what I could tell didn’t even try to say anything to keep a 25 year customer. I point that out because I have seen the people behind Rogers social media accounts try to jump in to save a customer who is talking about leaving. Instead they stuck with a modified version of the party line which is “We don’t currently support Apple Watch. Keep an eye on our website for updates on our products and services.” Now I guess you can’t get in trouble for repeating that. But it really doesn’t help them to give their customers the warm and fuzzies. And now customers are even trolling them on that:

Now the second tweet was sent two minutes after the first one. Keep that in mind as I post what Rogers replied with:

Well. Mr Patrick called it. Either Rogers didn’t see the second Tweet, or they simply don’t care and are sticking to the party line. Also, by the time customers start calling the responses from Rogers on Twitter like Babe Ruth calls home runs, Rogers has a major problem on its hands. As in, they have lost the plot when it comes to managing this from a PR perspective. That’s not good if you’re Rogers.

Then there’s this:

Now this could be fact, or a salesperson in a Rogers store or authorized dealer going rogue. But in the absence of actual facts, it allows this sort of thing to happen. That’s not good for anyone.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Though I will say it again packaged slightly differently. Instead of these incredibly lame and tone deaf responses, Rogers needs to simply come out and say what their plans are. Or, if they’ve not going to support the Apple Watch with LTE, just say so and put an end to this so that customers can make decisions on the telco that best meets their needs. If they are going to support it, say when. Cookie cutter responses are not winning the day for them, thus they really need to demonstrate that their customers matter to them by not giving them tone deaf responses.

I guess that all the negative press finally got to Rogers and their e-mail provider Yahoo/Oath and they decided to smarten up and do something about the terms of service that had upset users to a massive degree. In short, some changes are coming to the objectionable parts of the terms of service according to The Globe And Mail [Warning: Paywalled. I will find an additional source shortly].

However, this isn’t over yet:

However, Canada’s privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien said Tuesday his office continues to investigate other concerns raised over new terms of service recently sent to users of @rogers.com e-mail addresses

I took a look around and early indications are that this change is specific to Rogers customers. Anyone else who uses the Yahoo/Oath platform don’t appear at this point to have gotten the same treatment. I’ll continue to look at that. But if that’s true, it will be interesting to see what the reaction to that is.

More as it comes.

UPDATE: I found this which confirms that this was a Canada specific change.

UPDATE #2: The Toronto Star has this story. It indicates an investigation by the Privacy Commissioner is what sparked the change in direction by Rogers Yahoo/Oath.

UPDATE #3: Mobile Syrup has even more detail on this including a quote from Rogers that the telco “is currently working with its customers to “help them use Yahoo’s opt out settings” to manage their preferences.” Which implies that you can somehow opt out of this.  It also has Yahoo/Oath doing a bit of a walk back as well.

UPDATE #4: One Rogers customer Tweeted me to comment on this. Or should I say, ex-Rogers customer:

UPDATE #5: The change of heart by Rogers and Yahoo/Oath may not be winning hearts and minds. This person just Tweeted me to illustrate that: