UK 02 Iphone 3G Launch a Disaster

[mac2mac]

The launch of the the iphone 3G in the Uk was fairly bad in my experience and i think 02 should have been more prepared for friday 11th considering on monday they saw the demand for it when they were allowing people to pre-order (which failed for many people).

Here are some of the things i came across:

1. The day before friday 11th 02 decide not all shops will open at 8.02 like they originally said

2. Most 02 and CPW shops only had 4 16gb iphones which were in most cases sold to staff. In my case the 02 staff said straight away that there were no 16gb iphone's

3. Half the CPW staff don't even know you can "upgrade"

4. Just a few minutes after 8.02 the credit check servers crash. When they finally start working again it takes 3 hours to go through.

5. I would have gone to an apple store but they weren't doing upgrades.

6. Even in apple store's they were having problems because the 02 activation website only works with IE and not safari. Do you really think apple want to use windows

I still think the iphone 3G is brilliant and in the end i managed to reserve a iphone 16gb.

[SayCheese]

It was a complete disaster. Someone at O2 needs to take a long hard look at the whole process.

[Sanzu08]

complete nightmare

[chrissmash]

I just think after monday they could have prepared a bit better. I do understand that they only had a few days to salvage mondays disaster and as an IT archy I understand that its not easy to turn about the volumes of traffic they were expecting but you would think they could have in store systems prepared.

[swanseastu]

totally agree, 1728 got my iphone, but it still dont work cause the shop aint fed the paperwork through the computer grrrrr

[markym07931]

from my point of view.. it was great fun...


I was lucky enough to be at the Apple Store at Meadowhall.. Got there at 9.45am, and there was a small queue of about 20 people... plenty of iphones in stock, and water being handed out..

the day was long, thanks to o2 and their godawful systems that crashed, and I eventually left at 4.45pm, which a 16gb white iphone in hand...

now i'm just waiting for itunes to be able to activate it etc etc, as this WASN'T done in store, as it went to a contingency plan, etc etc, I think they made this contingency plan up when they realised things were foobard!!!

so.. now to try activate, and see what happens now!

M

[TonyHoyle]

Yeah my account still says I'm on a Simplicity tariff :p

O2 staff will be working all weekend I bet to sort out this mess.. and it's not their fault (the shop staff seemed to be really trying their best), it's down to management and IT failures.

[Jowl]

WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Just arrived. Woman in a Corsa - quite nice too (although I think she thought was having a go for waiting all day lol)

[ACDeag]

I had a totally painless experience. Ordered yesterday from CPW, phone turned up today at 09:26, all activated by 09:36.

[witchdrash]

Sadly my experience at the hands of the morons who work for carphone warehouse has totally spoiled any chance of getting an iPhone for the immediate future. I probably spent £20/£30 on phone calls to CPW to try and get my iPhone order sorted, after ordering it online early Monday, due to repeated errors by their staff, only to tell me today that my iPhone was dispatched (no it wasn't) then, having had enough and insisting they cancel my order they even made an absolute hash of it.

I want an iPhone, it would reduce the number of devices I carry and suit me far more than the blackberry I have right now, but I simply cannot justify giving my money to the O2/CPW farce that has been this release, you cannot tell me they didn't know what the rush would be like after an equivalent rush was seen when they dropped the 8gb to £169 and with the hype of its launch, both sides of this operation should hang their heads in shame.

[jk000]

was a complete joke someone at o2 needs throttling

miss informed reps
poor customer care