AT&T and Apple Fail to Embrace Community
It was back in February that I went to my first ever South by Southwest conference in Texas. Not only did I have the most amazing time, but I made more genuine contacts there in 1 week then I had ever made at ten other conferences combined. The who’s who of social media, emerging technology, gaming, mobile, and computing were there. If you missed it, you must make it in 2010! However, this post is not about extolling the virtues of SXSW but rather to talk about the HUGE FAIL of AT&T to support the needs of it’s customers.
The Meeting of the iPhones!
So, I was standing outside one of the more prominent Hotels in the city of Austin when I was approached by a woman with an iPhone asking me why the heck all of a sudden she can’t get any service. After all she lives in the area and needed to call her husband for a ride. I must have looked official with my SXSW badge hanging off my chest as I told her that the geeks of the internet had converged on her city and pretty much taken the AT&T network down with their heavy bandwidth use. I lended her my Blackberry on the T-Mobile network and she was able to make her call. This was probably the most iPhones ever to converge on one city for the whole of more than a week!
The AT&T Fail!
That evening when I returned to my hotel room I noticed the top trend on Twitter seemed to be a PR Nightmare for the folks at AT&T as thousands of well connected geeks aired their grievances with the giant telco provider. I remember AT&T was saying something about bringing in mobile towers of some sort, but the problem never rally seemed to resolve itself. In fact over the course of the next couple of weeks the bad press continued to flow out of the blogs, twitter, and networks of the web. Nothing but disgust from the digerati over their horrid mobile experiences while at SXSW.
The Word Spreads Fast!
Funny. The iPhone has enabled some of the most powerful ways to stay connected on the web. Folks can update everything from their Blog, to Facebook to Twitter as they are walking down the street, sitting on a bus, or heck…..bored at work. (That never happens) It’s fairly obvious that AT&T seems to be oblivious to this and I can’t say much better for Apple in having made an exclusive deal with a bunch of clueless suits! COMPANIES: EMBRACE YOUR PASSIONATE USERS DON’T TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEM!!!!! WTF
Momma always said, “Don’t make the same mistake twice!”
AT&T didn’t listen to their users at SXSW, so why should they listen to them now? This afternoon at WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) Apple announced the coming release of it’s new iPhone 3Gs. The word out from the iPhone users early on was that they couldn’t wait to go but the new sleeker, faster iPhone. Then reality sank in! In fact… It looks like they are going out of their way to bend their most passionate users over and give them the preverbal shaft! Here are snippets of text taken from the fine print on the Apple website describing the policy for upgrading to the newest iPhone 3GS announced today 6/8/2009:
- Requires new two-year AT&T wireless service contract, sold separately to qualified customers
- For non-qualified customers, including existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB)
- Visit www.wireless.att.com for eligibility information. Service may not be available in all areas or at the signal strength, rates, speeds, or bandwidth as demonstrated
Holy Crap!
Are you seeing what I am seeing? Seems to me that the translation is: If you have currently supported Apple and AT&T by purchasing an iPhone, we plan to give you the shaft by calling you ineligible for the less expensive upgrade price, but rather will charge you full boat for the phone! On top of all that AT&T seems to be creating it’s own PR nightmare a second time in the same places (Blogs, twitter, Facebook, Word of Mouth) as last time! Frankly I don’t get it. Here is some common messaging coming out of twitter in real-time, from previous iPhone customers.
This is the sentiment across the board and more can be easily spotted like a rolling ticker at Twitter Search
The Takeaway
Look, I understand that companies have to be profitable and they can’t just go around making everyone happy all the time… haha. However, in my opinion AT&T and Apple are in a unique position to leverage the always connected iPhone and it’s passionate social media community! I’m not going to get into how to here, but I ask you one question. What would the difference be in terms of promotion, evangelism and good press if all of the negative mentions were turned positive? How much better a situation would AT&T and Apple be in if they were to harness and embrace their communities.
As David Meerman Scott says, you want to create a “World Wide Rave” …. not a “World Wide Rant!””
Post Amendment: Case in Point! People have created a twitter account called ScrewATT. Frankly I feel a bit sorry for them.
Keith Burtis is a social media and digital marketing professional. If you or your company are looking to REV THE ENGINE on your digital efforts contact Keith today! Specialties include: Blog design/Integration, Custom Facebook Pages, Social, Digital and Interactive Content strategies.
Comments
Dave, Thanks so much for the comment and I always hold your opinion in high regard. Lets see if Apple does the right thing and discards this poor relationship.
Joshua Smialek I cannot believe that Apple & ATT would make it easier for customers who have never had an iPhone or a contract with ATT to get a 3G S than those who have had iPhones since the first release. I understand that they want to open the market to lower income brackets, but it makes me want to sell my iPhone and buy a BB Storm just despite them.
Where is Steve Jobs when we need him. Even the keynote lacked his familiar warmth…..
You make some great points Keith! We are a fairly captured audience… it seems smart to harness that. Didn’t someone once prove that it’s easier (and cheaper) to keep the customers that you have?
They should have done some promotion in which you receive a discounted price if you tweet about the discounted price. I’m sure they could have worked that in to a Pay-Per-Tweet model of sorts 
Looking forward,
Michael
Great post Keith.
I’ve always hated (hated) AT&T…mainly because I hated (hated) Cingular and the people in the Cingular HQ in Atlanta and the hate continues no with AT&T. I would love to check out an iPhone but cannot bring myself to switch over to the suckiest network in the world.
I have to wonder though…would any other carrier handle this any differently though? How many times have you tried to upgrade your phone with your current carrier and been told that you aren’t eligible for any discounts? Happens to me all the time on Verizon.
AT&T and Apple had a chance here to make life-long clients out of their current iPhone users but dropped the ball.
Steph I can’t believe this! I missed this when I heard all the announcements yesterday and I’m just devastated. I was looking forward to buying my new hardware! I feel like the faithful have put up with all the missing functionality and we should pay the same prices (I’d love a discount, but hey, I’ll take what I can get!) as new customers. Apple, ATT, are you listening?! Stop screwing the people who love your product and who have gotten you to where you are now!
My God, there’s so much whining about AT&T everywhere when in my experience, every cellular service provider pretty much sucks eggs. I refuse to do business with Verizon thanks to bad experience with NYNEX a long time ago, Sprint’s CS is horrible, and T-Mobile’s coverage area was always spotty, especially rurally.
AT&T isn’t the best, but it’s good enough, and I complain to them when it’s not and their CS isn’t horrible. GSM, which is based on TDMA, works differently from CDMA and that’s why you may be able to get more users to use a single cell tower’s service, but the voice quality is usually worse. It’s as if these people are complaining that AT&T is too popular that its users overload its cell towers with too many users. It happens. If you don’t like it, unlock your iPhone and get a T-Mobile SIM, or else buy a Blackberry or a G1 or something else on another network.
As for the cost of the iPhone upgrade, cry me a river. I was in line on 6/29/07 and shelled out $599 plus tax for an 8g iPhone 1.0. Instead of jumping on 3g last year, I patiently waited out my contract until now, knowing that Apple would release something better than the 3g. So, I’m having a hard time sympathizing with 3g users who can’t upgrade after a year or less of having their 3g phones.
The MMS and tethering issues are dumb, but I have lived with neither for 2 years and I can live without them both for a few more months.
Buffalo Pundit, I am in full agreement with you on the fact that the technology can fail based on overusage. I am also in agreement that AT&T can’t just give the best price to all of the iPhone users. However, my point here is that they have failed to embrace their most passionate and well connected users. The post was not a complaint about service quality, or availability, but rather AT&T’s failure to leverage a massive word of mouth community. The proof is in the pudding here. They have a technology that enables people to stay connected and “on” 24/7 and they have failed to embrace that community in any way making people feel slighted.
Try a google search of AT&T
Top search returns are all bad press. That’s too bad.
Thanks for your view.
When buying Cellphone Batteries make sure that you are not getting those chinese fakes and knockoffs.-”*
Hi Keith,
Long time reader, 1st time commenter… I have to say that I have been going back and forth about getting an iPhone. This post and the onslaughts of rants that have been pouring in have solidified my decision to never buy one. If anything, it will be an iTouch, where I don’t have to deal w/ AT&T.
It blows my mind how companies either through ignorance, or arrogance either ignore, or are just too tall to listen.