The Entire Rogers iPhone Upgrade Saga

I’m sure I could write this post as a set of diary entries. If only I could narrate it, and my voice was as cool as Rorschach. Without further ado – here is my entire iPhone upgrade saga via Rogers. The good, bad and ugly alike.

It’s worth noting that my reason for trying to time the arrival of my iPhone (I didn’t care when, as long as it was prior to July 2nd) was because I had planned on using tethering to get work done while I was away on vacation for nearly a month.

June 17th – The First Call

My Rogers contract is up in August, but because of such poor reception in my home office (zero bars, I have to call forward my cell to my home number in order to be able to receive any calls at all), I was already given permission by Rogers to break my contract, which I discussed with the CSR (I’ll use this acronym a lot, and I intend it to mean Customer Service Representative) I got on the phone.

I spent a substantial amount of pre-research time, constructing a phone / data plan that would meet my (and my wife’s) needs with Fido, before I made my call to Rogers. The sad irony of this is that Fido is actually a Rogers owned subsidiary that their competing with for my business.

When I got the first CSR on the line, I spent about an hour discussing plans, sharing my needs. He couldn’t help me come up with anything even close to what I had built with Fido, so I asked him if someone in retention might be able to help me put together something more suitable. He thought someone would be able to help, and transferred me to retention.

After that I spent about 30-45 minutes with a gentlemen in retention who came up with a great plan for me and my wife, similar to what I researched at Fido, but with a few extra features. The total cost of the new Rogers plan would be about $10/month more than what I worked out at Fido, but a price I was willing to accept. All told, I was extremely happy with the new plans we discussed. I knew going into it that I needed to be patient, prepared and willing to spend the time necessary to talk through things.

June 19th – The Order

The iPhone 3GS release date. Sweet glory indeed. I called Rogers back to place the actual order and change our plans as per discussion with retention. Was placed on hold several times, “the system is slow” is a line I hear repeatedly. No worries, I’m patient.

I’m told I can’t add visual voicemail until I actually receive my iPhone, their system won’t allow it, so I have to call customer service back once my iPhone arrives to get it activated.

At this point, I was told that my 32GB Black iPhone 3GS will arrive at my door via UPS on Wednesday June 24th.

June 23rd – I Can Haz A Tracking Number Plz?

Called to get a UPS tracking number. CSR gave it to me. Tried the tracking number I was given after I got off the phone, tracking number was invalid.

June 24th – The Sadness

Phone doesn’t arrive.

June 25th – I Can Haz A Real Tracking Number Plz?

Called Rogers to confirm the tracking number I was given. The CSR told me that there was no tracking number even available. So he puts me through to the “track and trade” department. He tells me that “track and trade” is really busy, and the wait on hold would be 30 minutes.

Waited on hold.

Waited on hold some more.

Finally got through.

Track and Trade CSR: “Sorry, the phone is on back order, we don’t have any in, there are tons of orders ahead of yours, and we have no idea when they’ll be arriving. We’re working with Apple on it.”

I ask questions. I’m upset.

I’m told repeatedly: “There’s nothing I can do.”

Every time I ask a question: “There’s nothing I can do.”

Track and Trade CSR: “Would you like me to transfer you to customer relations?”

Me: “No, I’ll call back later.”

I paused for a bit to weigh my options, and did what many geeks in my situation would do. I posted to Twitter:

Just got kicked in the face by #rogers re: iphone order… it will be blogged.

Here’s where I was surprised – I got a reply / mention back from one RogersKeith.

@humandoing I’m with Rogers. Can I help?

And then me:

@RogersKeith – if you can help – that’d be awesome. If you email me I’ll give you my cell#. junk at humandoing dot net.

I get an email from Keith, and I send him my story. He passes it to someone at “the office of the president” (which sounds incredibly official).

Later that night (7pm PST) I get a call from Ian at “the office of the president”. We go over my story, and he’s heading on vacation. He says that the only way I’ll be able to get a phone before I leave on my holiday is by canceling my order, going and buying one from the Apple Store – and then getting a credit on my Rogers account. At this point, that was sounding fine to me. He told me to call Mary tomorrow (June 26th) and he gave me her phone number, because he was heading on vacation.

June 26th – Office Of The President

I phoned Mary at 9:30am PST. No answer, so I left voicemail.

Called again at 1:30pm PST. No answer, and the call didn’t go to voicemail.

I emailed Keith again just to see if he could follow up.

A short while later I get a call from Mary (who, I might add, was extremely helpful, extremely courteous, and had the power to Get Things Done™). She confirmed what Ian had told me the night before, and says to call her once I’ve gone and made the iPhone purchase from a local retailer. She also told me that in order for me to receive a reimbursement, I had to purchase the phone on my VISA – no big deal to me, as that’s how I pay for pretty much everything.

The previous day there were a bunch of 32GB iPhones around my place in Langley, but not today. I found one at the Rogers store in Willowbrook Mall, but was told that the price would be $880+tax, and that I’d have to pay cash (the Apple / Rogers sanctioned price is $799, and you can pay however you want). This was probably the most bizarre wrench of the whole story. Not only am I told that I’ll be charged $81 more than the sanctioned price, I’m told that I have to pay cash? Are you guys out of your mind?

So I phoned the Apple Store in Vancouver, they hardly had any 32GB phones available, and they only had them in white. She said they can’t put one on hold for me, but if I came soon they should “probably still have one”. Again, fine. I’ll settle for white.

Wifey and I drive 1 1/2 hours to get into downtown Vancouver on a Friday afternoon, only to arrive and have them sold out of the 32GB phones. At this point, I was so beyond my wits end dealing with the whole situation that I bought a 16GB just to be done with it. And I now have a beautiful, shiny black iPhone 3GS, but sadly with 16GB less storage than I had wanted.

June 29th – They Said It Would Be How Much?

I emailed Mary the receipt for my iPhone, along with a brief description of my saga. I also phoned and left her a voicemail. I’m pretty sure that the launch of the iPhone 3GS has been the bane of many Rogers’ employees existence for the past 10 days.

She called me back a short while later noting that I’d purchased the 16GB phone instead of the 32GB phone. When I told her about my experience with the Rogers store, she was incredulous. She actually put me on hold and phoned them up. They told her they’d been sold out of 32GB iPhones for “a week and a half”. Pretty sure that there was some major CYA going on.

Given the whole gong show (on top of the other gong show, on top of the other gong show), she says “I’m going to give you an additional $15/month credit on your account for the next 2 years”. That was another shocker. She was really going out of her way to try to make this right, in whatever way she could. At that point, she had even still offered to replace the 16GB with the 32GB, but given my need for connectivity over the next month, I told her I couldn’t wait for one. Even so, she told me to use the phone, and if I ended up being extremely unhappy with it, to call her back and she’d work to provide additional assistance towards resolution.

July 6th – Bye Bye Data Plan?

My data plan along with my ability to tether magically “vanished” from my account. I called Rogers technical support to ask why tethering was broken.

The tech support guy told me that I had made account changes the day previously and had removed the data plan from my account. Funny, maybe I did it in my sleep?

So he transfers me to a CSR who fixes my account and restores my magical disappearing data plan.

July 27th – Will It Ever End?

Got home from vacation and had received my first bill. The $8/month credit that I was supposed to receive for visual voicemail was missing. Also was billed $4.65 for text messages, even though my plan supposedly included 50 sent text messages.

Had to call Rogers again to sort out the $8/month voicemail credit. Was told that the $4.65 I was charged for text messages was because of the dates that the account changes came into effect. The CSR told me that I didn’t have a text messaging plan on my account from the dates of July 1 to July 6. I don’t know how that’s possible, given that I still had my voice plan (which has the text messages as part of a bundle). Whatever. She wasn’t in a happy mood, she wasn’t going to credit it without an argument – so I just told her to forget it. I wasn’t prepared for a 20 minute argument with a Rogers CSR over $4.65.

After that, I realized my call forwarding was no longer working, which led to yet another call to Rogers. When I get the tech support guy on the line, he tells me “the call forwarding service seems to have disappeared from your account”.

He can’t re-add it, so I wait on hold as he tries to find a CSR who can “find the correct call forwarding service to add.” I’m starting to wonder if 3 calls a month to Rogers is just going to become the norm in order to keep my phone services and billing in order.

Finally off hold, magical call forwarding service that actually works has been re-added to my account, and I’ve verified that it’s functioning. Anyone want to take bets on how long before something else goes wrong?

Conclusion

So what do I conclude with? I don’t know. The whole process has been such a mixed bag of lies (aka “misinformation”) and screw-ups, along with people that were genuinely interested in retaining my business, and bending over backwards to come to an amicable resolution.

I feel like the whole experience has left me a bit marred. I love my new phone, but how long will it take before I just look at my phone and enjoy it, instead of thinking about the gong show involved in getting it?

The really frustrating thing is that most of the circus could have been avoided if, when people called to upgrade, the CSRs at Rogers simply said “I’m sorry that we’ll be unable to provide any estimate as to when your phone might arrive. The demand is unprecedented, and it could easily take 2-3 weeks. If you are in need of an iPhone immediately, your best bet is going to be to call the retail locations in your area and try to get one that way. I’m really sorry about that.”.

Some customers will piss and moan, but at least you’re setting their expectations correctly, as opposed to blowing smoke up their collective behinds.