AT&T continues to screw its customers

I have met a few really good people who are AT&T employees, but the company as entity displaying dishonest and insidious practices to take advantage of their customers. I so rarely actually hate things, much less people, but now I really fling hate AT&T.

This is the last straw for me and I'm jumping ship when the iPhone 5 comes out.

I paid for an unlimited data plan on AT&T. They scrapped that plan later but are still contractually obligated to honor it to those of us who signed up for it when they offered it.

Now for those of us with unlined plans, AT&T will throttle the data connection to unusable levels, essentially cutting off connectivity, if users exceed 2 GB. This is so dishonest. They offered an unlimited data plan, we entered into a two-year contract for it, which you won't let us out of, and now are not providing the contracted service. I'm sure there's some fine print that says they can renege on the basic promise whenever they like.

It's like saying, you are entitled to an unlimited air supply, but only of what you can inhale through this pillow we're forcing on your face. See? We're still offering unlimited air, but we're suffocating you still the same! Now pay your bill!

AT&T is so often the opposite of customer service. Time to switch!

AT&T seems to go out of their way to alienate their customers. From Cult of Mac: "AT&T treating customers like dirt? What a surprise from the wireless provider voted worst carrier in the country for two years in a row. I smell a class-action lawsuit, frankly. This is just a complete insult to unlimited data customers, almost all of whom have been loyal customers since the original iPhone." That would be me.


Update: While looking for a graphic to go with this post other than the usual AT&T=Death Star image, I found this blog. Wow. AT&T Critic: Yes AT&T is evil.

See also.

AT&T FAIL becomes its own meme

Sure, the knowledge of and frustration with AT&T's shitty coverage and service in SF is so pervasive as to become cliché, but the clever people at the True Sake shop in Hayes Valley have taken it another step, pushing it into the realm of the "What if Microsoft made cars" joke series.



Indicative of the meme: "If AT&T Made Sake…Your bottle would always look full, but your cup would always be empty."

Ha. I do love that.

Read more over at Laughing Squid.

(Photo by Todd Lapin via Flickr.)

shiny

I ventured back to the Apple Store last night. Short version: denied, denied, phone call, phone call, approved. Or perhaps: "Denied, denied, deal with asswipes, approved."


I met with two more Apple Specialists (bringing the total to seven), ran through my spiel with each of them, and handed my various Apple Specialists' business cards with notes written on the backs. AT&T clerk had assured me my status was now "eligible." I crossed my fingers. They ran everything up (and kindly did not as me to wait in line again), and then...denied.



"Customer not eligible for upgrade at this time."
This time I was not angry as I just wasn't surprised any more. My enthusiastic and optimistic new Apple specialist Mitchell Aji offered to call their AT&T hotline to see if they could do anything. I had been through this three times before to no avail, but sure, why not? He spoke with someone who gave him a new number. Who sent him to someone else. And finally, Mitchell spoke to someone at AT&T who knew how to fix this! I was very happy, but also wondered what would have happened if we managed to find this person last Friday in the first place, and why other reps did not share this know-how.

Apple Mitchell rang me up again, and the AT&T database confirmed my eligibility! I was able to pay (well charge really, that new transmission and other repairs has wiped me out) for the iPhone 4; they were able to activate it; and I was able to go home and transfer all my files.

A few words that everyone has said before about the iPhone 4: Oh Dear God this display is insanely beautiful. I thought the resolution upgrade would be marginal and not a big deal. But no, it's crisper and clearer than my eyesight. Wow. And the camera is much, much better (I'm upgrading from a 3G, not the 3GS).



Happy new home screen!
I am looking forward to new augmented reality apps when those get around to being reliable. And it would be nice if Skype would either (A) go back to allowing Fring to initiate Face Time/video chats with Skype users, or (B) enable video chatting on their own app. As it is now, Skype won't let others do what that haven't been able to yet, which is kind of dickish. I also need to figure out who else has one so I can play with the Face Time feature. (Although some tech blogs are speculating that AT&T is responsible for the WiFi only restriction, as those with overseas carriers, jailbroken phones and Fring users are able to video chat over 3G just fine, consuming only a about 3 MB a minute for motion-intensive chats.)

So far, everything with the iPhone 4 is working great, and is a substantial improvement over the 3G, although it has only been about 12 hours and I miss my hard shell case a bit. With both sides made of glass, I am sure I'm going to drop it sometime soon.

Final words: Thanks to AT&T employee Jim Snowden who read the blog and reached out to help— and has been nothing but a professional representative of AT&T and someone the company should applaud for dedication to his company as well as their clients, and to all of the dedicated Apple Specialists at the Apple Store San Francisco who spent many hours trying to make my iPhone purchase experience a pleasant and successful one in spite of all of the conflicts: they are Lee Duren, Katrice Shaner, Natasha, Tomas Wischerath, Alice M. and Mitchell Aji (and the man behind the curtain, Art). You guys are great.

But AT&T, you have got a LOT to learn about customer service. And actual service as well.

That's no moon

So, after my rant/vent of my miserable experience attempting to purchase an iPhone 4 last weekend, a seemingly nice AT&T employee read my post and was appalled at my experience. While he himself cannot assist me, he asked what I would like from AT&T and promised to bring my experience to the attention of customer service.

While I have not heard back from him in a while, he was true to his word as I received an e-mail from someone in AT&T's "Social Media Customer Care Team" yesterday morning. She offered to assist if I gave her my account information, which I did, but I have not yet received a reply.

I am more surprised that AT&T has a "Social Media Customer Care Team." I wonder if they shouldn't just take the money used to fund that group and apply it to eliminating those dead zones and fixing their vendor database interoperability problems.

A quick check of the Statcounter shows unusually high traffic Monday and Tuesday, about 150 unique visitors each day (the Scott Capurro rant/link on SFist last week popped over about 400 readers), and the logs show a tremendous amount of traffic from AT&T's internal news site and a post with the headline "Apple/iPhone/AT&T Fail: A San Francisco Customer Experience." I am interested to see if AT&T's response will be (A) kind customer care; or (B) intimidation and threats of legal action. Am I naive to wish the former?

Also interesting to note: the number of log entries showing site visits from Verizon's customer care.

I'm considering a third attempt at purchase tonight, just to see what happens.

AT&T employee joins the conversation, wants to make things better

To the kind AT&T guy who wants to make this better:
(see the comments from the previous post)

My emotional state has calmed considerably since Friday evening's fiasco. You have been kind enough to comment and engage and I would like to give a thoughtful response. Unfortunately, my thoughtful response was too much for the Comments section and is now lost. But here are the main points I was trying to make:

Most San Franciscans' hatred of AT&T Mobility comes from the widespread unreliability of coverage in the City. We are a major metropolitan area and one of the most technologically advanced cities in the country. To have a wireless service that is so spotty as to be cliché is immensely frustrating. But the Bay Area is rather Apple-centric, and many of us use the iPhone as a portable computer more than just a phone, so we are willing to put up with the monopoly on service, bad though it may be, in order to use the iPhone.

Years ago, long before the first iPhone, I switched from Sprint to AT&T Wireless for my mobile service. I had to cancel the service in two days as there was no coverage on my block or in my apartment. I switched to Cingular and got full bars everywhere I went. When AT&T Wireless absorbed Cingular, service again went to nil. I live on the top floor of a wooden structure not 100 yards from the geographic center of San Francisco. To have little to no wireless signal is ridiculous.

During this weekend's experience I found myself checking out Android phones at Verizon because in this city their service is the best. My digital life is so integrated with Apple products, however, that I need to stay with the iPhone and that means AT&T Mobility.

I wish AT&T had allowed Cingular's cell sites to continue operating. I understand the complexity of cell sites and licensing and site rents and city ordinances and such, but it would have been nice if AT&T had integrated existing cell sites where their service was weak. I called customer service repeatedly in the beginning and was assured that AT&T knew of and was working on the problem. Years later with still little to no service, I feel lied to.

You asked what I would request specifically to improve my AT&T experience. You asked thoughtfully and I would like to give a thoughtful answer:

(1) Please reset my "eligibility" so I can go ahead and buy the iPhone 4 from the Apple Store. This status correction needs to be set not just in whatever database AT&T clerks use, but in the system that AT&T requires Apple to use for verification in their checkout/activation process. Even though the AT&T representative reports that their computer indicates that I am eligible, AT&T's system continues to block my transaction at the Apple Store. It should not take me a week and three trips downtown just to buy a phone.

As a greater request, you might want to implement a system to address the issue on an ongoing basis. I am not the only one experiencing this frustration. If AT&T is going to be Apple's partner in iPhone exclusivity, their computers should be able to talk to each other. And if there is a customer service department whose job it is to reset customer's eligibility, that reset should not take three business days.

(2) Last year AT&T released the "Mark the Spot" app for the iPhone. This is a wonderful mechanism for soliciting customer feedback on dead zones. But there is no indication that anyone is listening to us. The customer's perception of AT&T corporate is that you know you have bad service, but because of iPhone exclusivity, you don't care. AT&T rate plans continue to shift and increase, but without a perceptible improvement in services.

The Mark the Spot app is a great tool for soliciting feedback from customers. Why not use that data to provide feedback to customers? Provide an interactive map of this online. Imagine a company that had the balls to say, "Hey, we know we have service problems. And here they are." The benefit here is that you would not be addressing some nebulous perception of spotty service but actual, identifiable issues. "AT&T Mobility has a strong network, but it does have specific weak coverage points. Thanks to cooperation with our customers, we know exactly where these are, and here is what we're doing to fix them."

AT&T could provide an online interactive map of reported and known problem areas. Every time a user reports a dropped call or no service, its location shows up on the map. Honesty from a corporation? Who would believe it? But click on any part of this map and AT&T can provide their plan to address these weak spots in the network, with a deadline.

Knowing that you know where the problems are, and that you plan to fix them, would go a long way toward addressing customers' frustrations. Including a plan to address the problems with a deadline for completion shows the consumer both integrity and accountability. There should be real accountability for fixing these areas as well. If a deadline is not met, or if the expected "fix" is more than 12 months away, users living in those affected areas could get some sort of recognition, say $10 off this month's bill, an iTunes gift card, something.

Right now, iPhone users feel used and abused by AT&T Mobility and the poor service quality has become a running joke on both coasts (NYC and SF). Responding to customer concerns with a commitment to providing reliable service (what, in theory, we are already paying for) would significantly improve the company's image and may increase customer retention/loyalty.

Admit the problems. Identify them. Tell us what you're going to do about it.

It's the sort of character we demand from our own employees and our own companies. Imagine if a customer could feel the same way about their service provider.



P.S.
And seriously, stop using San Francisco as an example of your service in your television ads. Or in the "more bars in more places" campaign. It just really, really pisses us off. We know first hand how bad AT&T's wireless service is here, so the company just comes across as big fat liars, adding to that whole frustration and perception problem.

Apple/iPhone/AT&T FAIL

So I headed down to the Apple store in downtown SF this afternoon to get an iPhone 4. I've been on the wait list for months with AT&T and RadioShack, who will buy back my old phone on the spot, but I'm still months away from fulfillment. I was talking to the Apple store on another matter and was told they had the iPhone 4s in stock right now, so I left for the Apple store and planned to meet Skot Land for happy hour. Multiple Muni fails delayed me by an hour, and Skot was kind enough to wait in line for me.

When it was out turn, the Apple dude rang me up in about five minutes, but the discount to Mobile Me didn't register, so he canceled the transaction, and tried to ring me up again. But according to AT&T I just got a new phone (the transaction he just canceled) and so am not eligible for another phone for another two years.

Then came lots and lots of calls to AT&T. AT&T/Apple partners. AT&T Corporate. AT&T local stores. An hour passed. AT&T refused to be helpful and reset my eligibility. The Apple/AT&T liaison spoke to me, and said that there is an entire customer service department at AT&T set up to do nothing but reset eligibility in cases like this, which are common (why they can't just fix their checkout system is beyond me). However, this "customer service" department can't reset eligibility for at least 72 hours. OMFG are you kidding me? AT&T actual can't affect their own records for three days?

Then the Apple/AT&T rep told me they just usually work the the AT&T store down the street, because from the store level computers, they can reset eligibility instantly. WTF? My Apple guy kept trying to call the local store but they would not answer their phone. Other stores refused to assist and only referred him and me to the national call center, who can't make changes for three days. Again, AT&T service FAIL.

Ultimately, the Apple guy decided to just take my ID, new phone, secret info and everything down the street himself and get it done. They do this all the time, no problem. (It seems this eligibility snafu during the purchase process is common.) He said we could just chill around the store or meet him back at the count in 10-15 minutes. Skot had already been kind enough to wait through my Muni nightmare, and wait in line, and wait though all of this crap, just so we could go for 2-4-1s, so I offered to get him a drink in the neighborhood while we waited. Apple dude had my number and would call or text when all was good.

Skot and I went down the block to a dive-ish place advertising cocktails, in theory to avoid hotel bar price points. We stopped into Jack's Grill, which was packed with tourists and claims to be "The Home of the Maltese Falcon."


.
My phone had no service, less than a block from the Apple Store. Again, more frustration at AT&T. We came back to the Apple Store around 8:00.

Apple dude doesn't seem to be back yet, no one can tell me anything other than that AT&T is an uncooperative partner, my phone is dead, and I am approaching rage levels. So Skot and I sidled up to an iMac to blog this, and express my frustration. It's been two hours. The process from front of line to exiting the store could have been five minutes without the frustration from AT&T.


Grr.

Update: Dude is back. The manager at the local AT&T store refused to help him. First he service-blocked to keep another employee from helping him. Then flat out lied saying they can't do that or access my account from there. They do this all the freaking time. I spoke to a half-dozen Apple employees who have dealt with this same issue at that same store repeatedly without incident. The AT&T employee even started to show the manager how to fix it and was shut down. Then the manager said I had to be there in person, even though there was an Apple guy, done this before, in uniform, with my ID and papers and everything, and the AT&T online account notes indicated all of this, with my permission and the manager continued to refuse service. The Apple guy tried to call and text me to come over in person, but by then AT&T had deactivated my existing phone because the system thought I was using the new one they wouldn't let me purchase! Again, AT&T FAIL!

Is having an iPhone really worth suffering through AT&T? No, clearly it's not. Sure, our experience in SF is that their actual phone service sucks beyond all competent measures, but to add the insult to injury of aggressively offensive customer service? If so much of my life weren't so fully integrated with the Apple platform, I'd be out in a heartbeat.

Just yesterday some frustrated iPhone users were saying that we use the iPhone less as a cell phone and more as a portable computer so that AT&T's miserable service was just an annoyance rather than prohibitive. Now I'm rethinking that assessment.

Especially when I heard that one of the reasons the Manager refused to assist was that it was quarter to closing time and he wanted to leave. He actually said as much. So that when I met up with Apple guy at 8:03, it was too late to do anything about it.

So now my levels of frustration are off the scale-incredibly frustrating trip downtown, hours wasted in the store, missing our happy hour appointment, spending $20 for two vodkas while waiting to fix a $30 error, and having a simple electronic switch turned into a bureaucratic nightmare by a behemoth tech company that seems to, from the CEO to the personal level, make it their stance to screw their own customers at every turn because they can.

Finally (finishing this at home now): I have to go down to AT&T in person, myself tomorrow and argue that they reset my iPhone eligibility. Then go back to the Apple store, where they said they could not hold a phone for me but there "should be enough," and pay through the nose for the new iPhone 4 and go through this process again. I was hoping for an iTunes card, and asked for a magic trackpad, for all of this hassle. They threw in a year of AppleCare for the phone, which I wasn't going to buy anyway. Meh. (And the trackpad even costs less.)

The worst part of all this though is that it ruined a perfectly good Friday night. I got my wrist and jankle worked on and was feeling good, was excited about a new toy, and looked forward to some cheap TGIF drinks with friends, instead I spent three times as much as I would have, missed the Friday after-work fun altogether, and multiple muni rides. Now my association with the product is nothing but bile.

But at least I got to have fun Skot times and he was great company throughout even though I could not set aside my rage enough to ever relax.

Maybe the shiny new features, once it's all installed and crap, will snap be back to a good mood.

Update 2: Went down to AT&T store today (painful way to spend a sunny Saturday), waited in line, and was finally assisted by a manager who was nothing but smiles and controlled demeanor while dealing with frustrated customers (he has been trained very well, and never once cracked under the unpleasant pressure—I say this to his credit.). However, it really doesn't matter how pleasant the manager was when all he could tell me was that he was incapable of actually fixing my problem, a problem not caused by the customer mind you, but by their own systems. It basically felt like someone was saying, "fuck off and die, we don't have to care because you don't have any choice," but saying it with a smile and a pat on the back. With all of the teabaggers and militia and gang crazy people out there, and the United States' inability to deal with meaningful gun regulation, I am genuinely surprised there is not more bloodshed at AT&T storefronts. And I worry for the few friends I have who are employed by AT&T. Is their corporate plan to inspire so much ire as to create a violent response? Is that some sort of corporate/Republican regulation conspiracy? What the hell is with these people?

I was assured that while they could send a request to reset my eligibility, there was nothing they could do to actually remedy the situation for three business days. Apple has to use an AT&T database to authorize iPhone purchases. But AT&T only updates that database over three business days, and Apple doesn't have any access or authority to override any of the shit it spews out, regardless of circumstance. Some partners.

So now, the AT&T computers at the AT&T store say I am back to being eligible for an upgrade. The AT&T servers required to be accessed by Apple do not. I went back to the Apple store as instructed. My new Apple Dude, Tomas was exceptionally understanding, kind, articulate and competent, and he really spent the better part of an hour trying to do whatever he could to remedy my situation and let me just freaking pay for and leave with an iPhone 4.

AT&T servers repeatedly refused to allow the transaction to continue, claiming I was ineligible. I witnessed this myself on their screens.

Tomas then spent another 15 minutes on the phone with their hotline to AT&T.

Best they can do: I have to come back THURSDAY—yes, a feaking week after I waited in line and tried to buy one the first time, just so AT&T can have time to update my status and allow me to spend my hard-earned dollars on the damn new phone.

If AT&T presumes to be a competent global tech company, they should be able to update their own databases in less than 72 hours three business days.

Oops, I said "competent." Actually, I typed it. If I said over a phone call it would have been dropped by now. Ever since they scuttled Cingular's towers there has been no coverage in my neighborhood. Every time I call or write customer service, I am assured "they're working on it." Empirical evidence does not support that assertion, rather the contrary.

Based on their customer service assertions, I have been conditioned to perceive every communication from AT&T to be not something honest-but-erroneous, but an intentional lie.

Rumors of potential availability of the iPhone on other carriers are just that: rumors. And often easily dispelled. I wonder how many will jump ship, and happily pay for the termination privilege, just to deal with a carrier, any carrier, other than AT&T. And honestly, if fat Luke Wilson shows up talking about AT&T wireless coverage in San Francisco one more time, the nearest San Franciscan will be serving up a bitch slap right quick.

in case you needed yet another reason to hate AT&T

Well, we know neither of those Ts refer to Trees. The CA assembly has been trying to make it harder for phone companies to dump millions of unwanted phone books on our doorsteps. The most recent measure, brought by SF State Senator Leland Yee, was killed by efforts from AT&T.

More dead trees, more trash, more hassle, more waste of energy and resources.

I really don't need an AT&T phone book. I am shackled to AT&T for my iPhone wireless service, so not only would I just use my domestic wifi to look up the number (rendering the phone book useless), but AT&T's service is such complete crap that I couldn't even make the call on their network if I wanted to.

AT&T continues to piss off its customers

AT&T has as much love from consumers as BP right now. So what do they do? Kill their affordable and care free plans in favor of expensive micro-monitoring plans.

And again, everyone from the tech industry to casual users notch up their hate to yet another level. Is their exclusive contract with Apple so strong that they can withstand this pissing off of their own customers unabated?

bon voyage

We missed out on connecting again tonight thanks to the completely unreliable, few-bars-in-all-places AT&T service in San Francisco (since when did I become the guy staring at the phone waiting for it to ring?). He couldn't reach me, and ultimately I had to Skype out to reach his mobile. Ah, teletechnology. I can't wait for Apple to drop AT&T "the A stands for Albatross" as the exclusive service for the iPhone.



Andrew is packing now for his flight back to Australia in the wee hours of the morning. So much fun at the Castro Street Fair. Shouts out and bon voyage!

More dancing on your next visit.

just when you thought AT&T couldn't get worse

It's no secret that AT&T's mobile service is crap, enough that it sullies the good name of crap.

They admit that their network can't handle the traffic of their own subsribers, much less new subscribers, and the concentration of iPhone users (AT&T customers) causes brownouts or blackouts whenever there are large gatherings of creative or tech professionals. The network is so inadequate, AT&T has forced Apple to cripple certain network-intensive apps for the iPhone. The required AT&T service contract is universally seen as the worst feature of the iPhone.

So AT&T proposes this fix: They sell you a box—not provide mind you, sell— and for a month fee—again, for a free— that you can install where AT&T's service is lacking that will reroute your cell calls through your internet connection, an internet connection you are already paying someone else for.

So to actually provide customers with the service they've already paid for once, AT&T wants their customers to pay them again for the same service they are supposed to be receiving, and even then, pay them twice (first for the equipment and then for the service).

This is called "MicroCell 3G." (And here.)

And tech and consumer sites are rightfully shouting WTF?

NYT on AT&T's problem with TMI

Since their exclusive deal with the iPhone, AT&T has been unable to keep up with the data demands of its customers, to the point that AT&T services crash, a lot, and they have gone so far as to cripple features and capabilities of the iPhone to keep what service they have up and running.

The New York Times looks at AT&T's desperate attempt to keep up with what is clearly too much information for their network. Not surprisingly, this is a PR nightmare for AT&T, and a reported 34% of consumers cited AT&T's service as the reason for NOT buying an iPhone.

slingbox's outrageous fortune

The Slingplayer app is out for the iPhone, but AT&T's 3G network is so substandard, and the iPhone is so popular, that AT&T forced the company to prevent the application from using the 3g network to stream videos, despite the fact they allow it for other smartphones on the same network.


AT&T's move to block iPhone SlingPlayer from 3G is poppycock
Slingbox owners can now access their content from the convenience of their iPhone. The only problem is that AT&T has killed the app's access to its 3G network, hobbling an otherwise useful app and making its $30 asking price a little hard to swallow

From the article:

AT&T itself has repeatedly credited the iPhone for driving up its ARPU and wireless revenues for the last few quarters. In a sense, AT&T seems to be telling its most lucrative customers, "Thank you for paying us lots of money to use our network—just don't actually use it too much, mmkay?"

AT&T's goal of maintaining a good minimum service level for all 3G users is a laudable one, but cutting off 3G access to useful apps for its highest-paying customers (while allowing it for others) is a pretty lousy way to do it. AT&T needs to work harder on increasing the capacity of its 3G network to avoid having to cripple the functionality of the devices it sells.

free AT&T wifi hotspots for iPhone

At&T just pushed a text message to iPhone users that we now have access to AT&T wifi hotspots all over the world, including domestic Starbucks locations.

However, it's not just as simple as discovering the network: you have to select the network, enter your phone number, and then wait for an activation code. But all in all, it looks pretty painless for free wifi in airports, hotels and such.

iPhone users (or thinking about it-ers) can get the details here.