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johnwin

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 27, 2008
431
0
Hull, UK
Found this on the o2 forums

http://customerforum.o2.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=2866

Offical Email from O2
Post by gpfradgley on Tue Jul 08, 2008 10:59 am
Reply with quote
To: Gareth (email address taken out)
Sent: Tue Jul 08 11:39:56 2008
Subject: FW: POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE OVER IPHONE

Dear Mr Fradgley

Thank you for your email. Matthew has asked me as O2 Sales Director
responsible for iPhone to reply on his behalf. Up front, I would like to
apologise for the disappointing and frustrating experience you had
yesterday on our online shop.

At O2 we had said that we would keep all those who had registered their
interest in Apple iPhone 3G up to date with the launch developments. We
also used the registration data to keep Apple up to date on the
phenomenal interest and to support our orders for the phones with them.
We have been working continuously with them to get as much stock for the
UK as possible. Unfortunately, they have only been able to supply a
small proportion of the number of phones we asked for, because they are
launching simultaneously in 22 countries. We are confident that over
time we will start to get sufficient volume to meet demand, but it is
likely that stock will be in very short supply for some weeks to come.

We opened the online shop yesterday, having only told those who had
registered that it was available, to give them a chance to be one of the
first to get their hands on the iPhone. This also meant that successful
orders could be delivered to customers' homes on the same day as the
retail high street launch, 11th July. To put it in context we had over
200,000 people expressing interest and only a very small proportion of
that number of devices available. Faced with this dilemma, we made it
clear in the communications that to be fair to all customers the orders
would be managed on a first come first served basis, as stock was
limited. The response was so great that the online store completely sold
out of iPhones within just a few hours.

We did also take steps to ensure our own customers were not
disadvantaged by providing a stock allocation for them. We took as many
upgrades orders from O2 customers as we did from the customers of all
the other networks put together.

We run one of the busiest and most robust web stores in the UK. I
appreciate that it is little comfort to you given your experience, but
we had invested heavily to add a huge amount of additional capacity, 250
times its normal rate, and back-up systems. We tested this carefully in
advance. The massive simultaneous crush, partly created by our open and
honest communications approach with the registered community, exceeded
even our worst case assumptions. Demand was at 13,000 orders per second.
Frankly, we have to admit we just weren't prepared for this
unprecedented level of demand. No website is.

The next opportunity to get an iPhone will be when the device goes on
sale in the high street on 11th July. O2 and Carphone Warehouse stores
will be taking new orders and upgrade orders. Apple stores will only be
taking new customer contracts. Most shops will open at 8.02am but some
stores, particularly in shopping centres where early access is not
possible, will open as usual from 9am. The approach on Friday will also
be on a first come first served basis. The amount of devices will vary
depending on the store but will be on average a few dozen iPhones in
each O2 or CPW store. We are expecting early queues and, like the online
site, are expecting to sell out very quickly. Apple stores will have
more devices. We will be receiving deliveries from Apple roughly once a
week for the foreseeable future but it will be several weeks before
stocks increase. We will release stock updates for the online shop as
they become available.

I am sorry that you haven't been successful in getting your hands on the
new iPhone and once again I would like to apologise that the experience
you had wasn't as we wanted or you deserve. All I can do is reassure you
that we will continue to work closely with Apple to get as much stock as
possible for the UK. We will also continue to use the principle of first
come first served as stock becomes available for both online and in our
stores as we feel that is the best way to be fair and equitable to the
many tens of thousands of other customers also desperate to get one.

Thank you

Stephen Shurrock
Sales Director
O2
 
I just got the pun 8:02 am - because it's O2 - call me slow but I've been wondering for a while.

13,000 orders a second, wow. Looks like everyone and his granny is going to have one of these things. I think I'll get a Blackberry instead then. Think Different :apple:
 
The next opportunity to get an iPhone will be when the device goes on
sale in the high street on 11th July. O2 and Carphone Warehouse stores
will be taking new orders and upgrade orders. Apple stores will only be
taking new customer contracts.

This at least clarifies exactly what is happening re: the apple stores.

The amount of devices will vary
depending on the store but will be on average a few dozen iPhones in
each O2 or CPW store.

Uh oh.

Should I be in the queue already??? :eek:
 
What a load of BS - in particular the part about making sales available to those that had registered interest... I registered as soon as it was possible on the day it was announced, received the email from O2 etc. but then nothing whatsoever saying 'please go and pre-order now'! They've made a complete mess of this, and if they weren't the only UK carrier I'd have given up on them already.
 
FWIW I just got the exact same email. Will be handy to take along to the O2 store on Friday I guess just in case they give me any bother about trying to upgrade in store.
 
I've had exactly the same response to my complaint (word for word), which doesn't address most of the things I was complaining about (the lack of information about the white iPhone in particular).

Quite staggering disrespect for customers. They've patently not even read my complaint.

Phazer
 
So, there is going to be a few dozen phones per store - With about 200 stores for O2 and CPW each, that's something in the order of 15,000 to 20,000 phones in the UK. It may get a bit competitive on Friday trying to get hold of one of these!
 
780,000 a minute......... dont think so!!!!

we made it clear in the communications that to be fair to all customers the orders would be managed on a first come first served basis, as stock was limited.

thats not true because people where getting through at different times of the day untill they sold out, yet another lie!

Simon

still mad at no iphone 3g and not i white yet!:(
 
13,000 server requests per second at its peak, maybe. Considering how many AJAX requests there were on each page load, and all the various other assets like images, you can probably divide that figure by 100. 130 requests for the page per second at the peak sounds about right for such a hyped product.

It was O2's server heavy code that caused the problems.

You would have to divide it further to get the number of people who were trying to place orders - by the number of times we were all refreshing the page to try and get the content to load properly!

O2 do seem to like quoting figures to whip people up in a frenzy over this product. Take this from their press release, issued yesterday:
Though O2 had invested several million pounds to increase the order capacity of the site (with order processing capacity increased by over 250 times its normal rate), at times the site still couldn’t process the sheer weight of demand.
Source: Pocket-lint

I am still trying to get my head around how any company can spend 'several million pounds' on servers, load balancing hardware and web developer fees. I don't imagine Amazon's web servers and associated hardware would have cost them 'several million pounds'! What a load of horsecrap.
 
so, it seems apple stores will be selling iphones.

I'm wondering about this as well, and with the mention of Apple stores having 'more' I wonder if it makes more sense to go to Apple. Of course there are fewer Apple stores, but they're larger and have more staff - any my experience of 'service' has always been fairly positive with Apple.

Thoughts?
 
The amount of devices will vary depending on the store but will be on average a few dozen iPhones in each O2 or CPW store.

If this is true, It's going to get nasty, in some parts, on Friday.

~25 units per store?

Complete sell out in the first 2 hours (7-9am) - anyone? :eek:

R-Fly
 
Contract free?

no idea how it's going to work as they won't want to let them out of the door at the subsidised price without an 18 month commitment and pay and go isn't to be available until later in the year.
 
If this is true, It's gong to get nasty, in some parts, on Friday.

~24 units per store?

Complete sell out in the first 2 hours (7-9am) - anyone? :eek:

R-Fly

Nah. First, "a few dozen" doesn't usually mean 24, it's more likely to be 40-60 phones per store. Second, while we may all be frothing at the mouth on here wanting to get our hands on the 3g goodness, do you really think the general population is? There have been no TV ads so far for the 3G (that I've seen) and apart from the stuff in-store I haven't seen any posters etc. anywhere either.

I still think O2 are trying to whip up demand/headlines, although I'm perfectly prepared to be proved wrong and be weeping quietly when I can't get one for about a month after trying on Saturday. :)
 
no idea how it's going to work as they won't want to let them out of the door at the subsidised price without an 18 month commitment and pay and go isn't to be available until later in the year.

There was talk of Apple having some sort of access to O2's systems to set up contracts, though I appreciate this may have been technically very difficult to achieve in the timeframes it's not impossible.
 
My friend at one of the o2 customer service centres (have some sympathy for him today!!!) txt me to let me know that anyone who has not yet received confirmation regarding their order (ie failover server orders) will be contacted by pm tomorrow latest to advise them as to whether or not they will recieve a phone on Friday.

Email regarding upgrades is just for o2 upgrades, iphone to iphone 3g upgrades is another issue. At the moment it is grew, once they have the stats regarding how many orders they failed to allocate online, they will make a call as to whether to allow iphone to iphone 3g upgrades in store. It looks unlikely as they did not anticpate this requirment, and to roll it out in three days in all stores will be hugely problamatic. Alternative is to have us wait a week for the new phone. Sorry!

Brian
 
Email regarding upgrades is just for o2 upgrades, iphone to iphone 3g upgrades is another issue. At the moment it is grew, once they have the stats regarding how many orders they failed to allocate online, they will make a call as to whether to allow iphone to iphone 3g upgrades in store. It looks unlikely as they did not anticpate this requirment, and to roll it out in three days in all stores will be hugely problamatic. Alternative is to have us wait a week for the new phone. Sorry!

It's already been confirmed by multiple O2 stores that existing iPhone customers will be able to upgrade in-store now.
 
o2 stores have already received an email yesterday stating that existing iPhone owners are able to upgrade in store on Friday.
 
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