iPhone Airtel launch, Bangalore, India
This is my personal experience at the launch here in Bangalore, India. Happy that i could pick up one.
BUT
Very disappointed with the buying experience, and partly i think Apple has to be blamed, they just dont care about the products or the users outside US and Europe.
I had pre booked the iPhone in July and was awaiting a reply from Airtel and Vodafone. On Tuesday midnight Vodafone jumped and announced the pricing and sales experience detail. I was quite sure that AirTel would be pricing the handsets same, and difference if any would be with the plans. I already am subscribed to Airtel Mobile office package and knew it wouldn't be a problem for me, the plans.
Wednesday morning on my way to office i went and spoke to Indira Nagar Airtel showroom, the person in charge was very friendly and really helpful. But he was clueless of the details of launch or price, so when i showed the email from Vodafone, he promptly took my business card and assured to call me back. Once i reached office i received a call from Airtel (support center) to approach the nearest vendor and make the booking for Rs 5,000. I proceeded to Airtel koramangala vendor, i didnt want to run back to Indira Nagar and since i was assured that i could pick up the phone directly at Airtel Banarghatta main office at midnight, irrespective of where i made the payment.
At Koramangala shop,they took the booking amount, but were clueless on the price, which was informed to me on phone by Airtel!! The guy at counter after making multiple calls to his manager, confirmed that i could pick up the phone on Friday morning. I told him i was already informed about the thursday midnight launch and would like to collect it from there. Again he confirmed that i can pick it up from Airtel main office/launch venue. He informed me that i will have to pay 2.5% surcharge over the price if i was paying by card (debit/credit). WTH!!
AirTel either was taken by surprise by Vodafone or has a very poor coordination between its own departments and vendors! Most of the time the customer had more info than the company regarding the product and launch. I was now totally lost and even unsure of the promise that i can purchase at midnight!
Thursday morning, the sweet gentleman at Indira Nagar called me up and said they are planning on home delivery at night! I would have definitely preferred this, but unfortunately since the payment made cannot be transferred, i dropped the idea. I call up koramangala guys and confirm on evening plan.
Afternoon phone starts ringing and atleast 3 diff people confirm with me on my attendance, i could sense "desperation". Pricing is way off, and targets even further!
I proceed to the venue and thankfully traffic was thin and reach 15 mts ahead of start of launch (930pm was the launch event start time). I reach there expecting a product launch, demo, talk about product blah blah blahs! Surprise surprise no Q's, perfectly planned slot allotment based on first come first serve basis. I proceed to have some light refreshment and move to the actual venue, where 2 MC's are trying their level best to entertain.
Good part they had provided chairs and not much crowd there, i could smell the "i". Then the show goes to some singing and by that time crowd start to swell, mostly Airtel vendors/families and i dont know towards the end it was so jammed packed chaos whereby i had to let go my chair. So i could see some gizmo nuts also around, yeah we can identify each others well. Magic show starts lol !!! he is famous guy dont know his name, he has done disappearing act with elephants and all.
Anyways the serious buyers just want to stand in line in anticipation and wait for the doors to open, i thought Apple knew this and thats how they would want to create the hype also. But unfortunately Airtel had some other ideas, they had covered the showroom well with a neat curtain and a ribbon to cut et all. 5 mts to launch some Airtel top honchos (i guess) walk in with 3 movie stars. No disrespect to movie stars/celeb's, but what the hell was airtel trying to do? An Apple product (maybe the first) being promoted by film stars lol.
Midnight and announcement is made that the celebs will open the sale, fine if they are really determined that this will make people change mind about price fiasco, go ahead. But the decent way would have been to get the celeb in front row of line and let them enter the showroom and make the purchase along with rest of the crowd who were actually waiting for 2.5 hours!!! (yeah dont even compare that to other countries where the phone actually sold due to better pricing). Ok no big deal, but then by 1150pm the whole bloody tv channel crew had landed up, all sorts with big to small minidv cams, local channels as well as 1 or 2 national channels.
All these band baja guys and celebs move in to purchase the phone and the showroom is cordoned off by bouncers! WOW! That made my day, and those of many others who started booing!! Ok we poor souls dont have muscles but sure can boo Meanwhile its full confusion now, the amazing token system which had numbers and color codes (5 colors), nobody had a clue on how to run it!
Original plan announced by MC was to line up in the order of numbers, 5 diff Q's based on tag color. Suddenly someone from inside shouts out token 1 come in lol, so now they want all the tags line up, based on numbers, irrespective of colors??? Fortunately i was the first in my color tag, rest of numbers before me were missing and in between the shouting and booing i could manage to get in, and the guys at door just welcomed me in lol lol.
For a change first experience inside was well organized, moved to the payment first, present receipt, pay the balance. The vendor reps from each of the showrooms were there and could easily complete the process without much confusion. And at close to 1215 am i was handed my sealed piece of 16 GB black iPhone and a Tshirt which says, i have iPhone or similar (who cares about T's).
Now i have to move to activation counter, and young chaps with comp and beautiful women standing behind them for company, hmmm. They open the cover, and starts searching for "sim eject tool". Its missing!! They search the whole pack inside out!! The guys sitting to my right also has same issue!! in my mind i started thinking, oh oh, i dont like this!!
So the whole team is desperately searching for pins now, any size and length would suffice, but not around. Then i realize its supposed to be inside the start up instruction pack, i open and voila its there! So i show them and then the gal standing behind says, "yeah we know that sir". LOL! honey, accept that you guys were nervous! its ok! we can understand that!
My sim plonked in (its pin locked) and my nervous friend was asking his colleague something, and then he was keying in, which was the wrong pin number! (i had changed from default ones). Thankfully i stopped him at the end of 2nd try! Phew!! Or i would have landed up with a locked sim card and what not!! They plug in the phone and activation process starts.
My phone is taking eternity to activate, some Apple tech guy (guessing) who was monitoring comes and apologize and says it might be due to server getting busy. Oh well it happened on July 11th, so i thought its same ol story. Then i realize all the other comps are working fine, by that time the guy on my right side didnt have customer and thankfully offered to plug in the phone in his machine and try. Voila it git activated in few mts, and now he without asking me, installs airtel live (which i promptly removed as i walked out of showroom later)!!
They go on further to enroll me with a mac id (i already had one), when i promptly put my foot down and said, "Please could you hand over the phone, so that now on atleast i can do it proper, and on my terms".
I collect all the accessories scattered on table (thanks to sim ejection tool search fiasco), plonk them inside the pack and walk out. Thank the kids on the counter and my Indira Nagar friendly guy (oh he was also there). Got out and sat at the portico and had my fag, Barista coffee was great and was the only saving grace at that point of time. Made a call to wifee and informed, ill be home in 30 mts.
Waaah whatta first Apple experience for me. Who to blame, my madness OR the way in which local telcos do launches!!
