Saturday, September 01, 2007

My terrible horrible iPhone activating experience.....

While I'm typing this, I'm sitting here listening to some really stupid song on the phone while being on hold with AT&T to activate my iPhone. And I'm frustrated because, I had a simple problem while activating my iPhone (my home address could not be located, for some reason mysterious to me) and I got an email asking me to call an ATT number. I called them, and they said they don't assist iPhone activations!! So they asked me to call 1-800-MYIPHONE. Patience still prevailed. I called them. They said this is an ATT problem and they are going to route me to ATT. But, that's where I came from!!!!

I now understand that these are the problems that you face when two such big companies come together to offer a product or service. Who takes ownership? Who takes responsibility? Hahaha! Simple activation issue. No one knows who's supposed to fix it or find a solution to.

.....waiting......

Alright, so here I am now talking to an ATT customer service agent now...First question after introduction, "So, sir, are you activating your iPhone? " No, my Motorola Razr and I thought I'll call you instead because I like talking to ATT customer service...

Anyway, at least this guy is trying to check what went wrong and is interested in helping me out. Let's see how it goes.

In the meanwhile, I wasn't very satisfied with the iTunes activation process either for my phone. Very simple things that they could have done better or tested better -
- The social security text field had no length limit
- It mandates that I enter a home phone number! For God sake, I'm not breaking the law if I don't have a landline, do I? So I put in my work phone number instead.
- I tried to go back a few screens during the activation process, to refer to some information that I had entered, and I couldn't go forward again. I had to cancel the activation process and repeat the whole process again. Could it get better?


Ok, back to the customer service rep. I'm stil on the phone, and he's not able to help me. He's trying to figure out who he should redirect me to and is probably going to redirect me to the original number I started from.

Hahaha! as I expected, he's asking me to call the 877-800-3701 ATT number that I started from, and he's not able to transfer me there because they have high call volumes at the moment.

Me: "So, that's where I started right, and they asked me to call 1-800-MYIPHONE and they transfered me to you and you're asking me to call the first number I called again!"
ATT agent: {doesn't know what to say...silence for a few seconds and then repeats what he just said} Yes sir, that's the number you have to call, and right now they have high call volumes so you may want to try after some time
Me:{I give up...} 'orite thanks...
ATT: Thank you for calling ATT customer service sir, you have a good day
Me: Thanks, I'm already having a smashing one!


After a few minutes, here I am, calling the ATT 877 number again, and they hang up saying that they have a high call volume and ask me to call later.

So i got through. The welcome message (I didn't probably observe this before) says happily, "Welcome to the iPhone activation system" and the first agent I speak to says again that she cannot assist me and transfered me to another ATT department and the automated IVR asks me to enter my wireless cellular number. Dude, I don't have one yet as I'm trying to activate it, wasn't I clear?? But it doesn't let me go through, so I hang up, give up.

So I don't know what to do, and am sure one out of 50 or 100 might have had this kind of an activation experience, but the fact is I did and I don't like this process. So, I'm going golfing now.

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