Calling Around + Apple + AT&T = ??

Well, we all believe that AT&T's customer support is crap and Apple's is awesome...

Ironically enough, I was calling around looking for anyone with remaining iPhone stock, I called an Apple store and 4 AT&T stores. The AT&T stores picked up after 2 or less rings and were extremely polite (Especially shocking since I assume they are dealing with callers like me all day “Do you have any remaining iPhones in stock?” over and over). When I called the Apple store it rang for around 3 minutes before I gave up and called back 5 minutes later, this time it rang about 8 times before someone answered. When I asked if they had any remaining iPhones the guy on the phone sounded very annoyed a responded with a snappy “No”.

Perhaps AT&T only cares about how good their sales associates are

It's always a crap-shoot when dealing with people because each person is different. Maybe the Apple guy just got reamed by a customer or maybe he's a <year employee tired of people asking if he got one free. Overall however, you will see a definite trend in whether or not customer service is good or bad with a company based on their training and guidance and example of management.

I had to call Apple support the other day. The first guy was hard to understand with a strong accent and he would but me off mid-sentence because he either heard what he wanted or assumed what I was going to say, which is very annoying. The second guy was very good and considerate.

I've never contacted anyone with Cingular/AT&T about my service with them as it has always been great and I've had no reason to contact them.

Ironic I must say. AT&T is a dirty line up of letters when when thinking of
costumer service or Cellular matters. But I dont know if the service as
gotten better or with a sweet phone as the Iphone Blinded me form
all the things that bothered me in the past about AT&T but as it stands now
for 2 weeks I am happy. (good study for a college student)

Wait until you ever need to call their customer service for something...then you'll see.

There's a reason AT&T/Cingular has never even come close to winning any JD Power awards for customer service...

In all fairness to apple retail stores focus the staff on sales and onsite support not manning the phones if you want good phone service call 1800MYAPPLE

How was the availability at the AT&T stores near you fleurya? I've stopped at 3 near me and they all have them in stock.

baggss said:

How was the availability at the AT&T stores near you fleurya? I've stopped at 3 near me and they all have them in stock.

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I don't know how they are around him, but the ones I called mostly all had them. One had only 8GB models (Too expensive), one had just sold their last 4GB as I was calling (the guy told me it was walking out the door as we spoke), another had a bunch but they couldn't sell them until tomorrow, and the final one had them but they were locked up in the back room and there wasn't a manager on call so they couldn't get the case open.

Needless to say the Apple store was all out.

schweb said:

Wait until you ever need to call their customer service for something...then you'll see.

There's a reason AT&T/Cingular has never even come close to winning any JD Power awards for customer service...

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I agree the AT&T / Cingular customer service is pretty lousy.

but the JD Power & associates awards are "bought" not given out because they were earned. Companies "pay" to get an award from JD Power and Associates.

you need to research a company called Telephia. they drive test each and every wireless carrier across the country and post actual results. They also look in to customer satisfaction results and post those as well. Each company has to pay them for the results and each company can see ALL the results.

Verizon and AT&T/Cingular flip flop between 1st and 2nd place every few months.

jab119 said:

but the JD Power & associates awards are "bought" not given out because they were earned. Companies "pay" to get an award from JD Power and Associates.

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That's not true. I work for a company that is ranked by JD Power and we rank very highly and I know we certainly don't buy our place there. JD Power Award rankings are driven directly by consumer survey results, not "buying" them.

jab119 said:

I agree the AT&T / Cingular customer service is pretty lousy.

but the JD Power & associates awards are "bought" not given out because they were earned. Companies "pay" to get an award from JD Power and Associates.

you need to research a company called Telephia. they drive test each and every wireless carrier across the country and post actual results. They also look in to customer satisfaction results and post those as well. Each company has to pay them for the results and each company can see ALL the results.

Verizon and AT&T/Cingular flip flop between 1st and 2nd place every few months.

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Out of curiosity, do you have a link to any of this? If its true, I would love to see how the media handeld it.

Cody said:

Out of curiosity, do you have a link to any of this? If its true, I would love to see how the media handeld it.

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No, this came from the upper management in my company. I have heard it from more than one of them over the years.