I have written plenty about O2 over the past few months, both here and on Forninepounds, and yes it has all been bad.
You have all read about my trials attempting to get an iPhone, and the treatment I, as a bill pay customer of their’s since esat digifone launched, have received.
I have sent 2 emails of complaint. Both were answered, the first in a very snooty fuck off sort of way and the second from Paddy where he took everything I said on board, and is, according to his email and forum comments, doing something about it.
Ok I know the iPhone stocks were low, I know everyone wanted one, but I nearly drove myself to insanity trying to find one.
Prompted on by Alexias post last week, I feel now that I have one, I should fully explain what has happened over the past 2 months.
2 days after launch day (July 11th) I was phoning O2 stores getting my name on waiting lists for the next deliveries of the phones. I had my name on 3 stores lists, but I knew if any of them was to come through, it would be the store on the top of Grafton Street. O2 experience stores were not taking names down and were selling them in a first come first served fashion as were the carphonewarehouse.
I kept a close eye on the O2 forums, keeping an eye mainly on stock levels. I admit I did not hang around stores every day unlike others but I did spend hours on the phone attempting to get through to stores, to this day even with stock problems virtually resolved, stores are still proving hard to get through to, more on that later.
Every time I phoned I got the old “no, none in stock” when are you getting them “have no idea could be today could be next week, we are not told by Apple” fair enough I thought, I will just have to wait. Then it all started to get very annoying.
On Sunday the 3rd of August I was out and about in the Square, Tallaght. I had read on the O2 forum and Boards.ie that people were getting lucky and picking up phones calling into O2 stores, so I thought feck it why not give it a go. The guy in the store told me they had 3 8 gig black iPhones, OK I wanted a 16gig but at this stage anything would do. I went to find Paula to tell her I could get an 8gig, she said so long as in 3 months time you don’t want a 16gig go for it. Off I went with a grin like the cheshire cat on my face. This is where I ended up been told that I could not have one, yes they had 3 in stock but what your man forgot to tell me was that they were being held for people. I was livid, and the manager could see this, she asked me if I wanted to put my name on a list, oh god not another one, I said no thanks and walked out.
She followed me and asked me to give her 5 minutes, one of the phones was been held for a worker in a store nearby, she was going to see if he wanted it and if not the phone was mine, so I waited and she came back and told me the guy was not there, but if any of the phones were not collected today she would free them up and I could get it first thing in the morning. I knew I would be around until the store closed so I thought I will go in just before closing and see what the story is, leave it as late as possible if they aint gone then its the same thing as me going there first thing in the morning.
20 minutes before the store was about to close I toddled in and the manager was not around but I asked one of the other guys if any of the 3 phones had been collected, he had a look in the back and came out and said nope the 3 phones were still there. I explained the fact that I had been in earlier and what the manager had said, he was not taking the risk, I could have been lying, and asked if I could wait till she came back, to which I replied of course. Back came the manager, at this stage 10 mins left to closing, she saw me and I asked had the guy been in to collect the phone she would free up, to which I was told yes he has been in and collected it.
So the store bullshitted me probably so they could close early and rather then argue, which I should have done, I walked out so annoyed.
Tuesday the 5th of August at 9.12am, I was still at home on holidays and knew that iPhones were going online to be sold. I was refreshing the page for 45 mins beforehand but once O2 uploaded the online order form I was in, and I had bagged myself a 16gig black iPhone, woohoo happy days, until I got to the end “confirm order” button, after 15 mins waiting for the next page after pressing the confirm button I was informed that since I am a bill pay customer I have to get the phone instore, you what!!! I am already on lists instores and ain’t having any luck with that, with phone calls or calling in.
I promptly rang 1909 to speak to customer care. I spent 1 hour 15 minutes on the phone there, getting absolutely nowhere nearer owning a phone, but the agent I was speaking to was fantastic. I have since found out that because bill pay customers need a upgrade it cant be done online, its too complicated, yeah right bullshit. While onto customer care I said I wanted to complain about O2’s service. I was told to write an email, but explained that under no circumstance did I wish to do that again due to the first snotty email that arrived, I demanded a phone call from someone because my nokia e65 was dead and I needed a phone if this did not get sorted they were losing me as a customer by the end of the week iPhone or no iPhone.
To this date I have not received that call.
After 2 days waiting I decided to write the second email, mentioning the snotty email from a few weeks earlier, I also let them know that if that person who wrote the first email wrote back to me again I would probably leave. Thankfully a different person, Paddy, sent back a lovely email, I had told him of my story in Tallaght, how upset I was at the online booking fiasco aswell and also the fact that the loyalty of their existing bill pay customers really meant fuck all to O2. He was so apologetic for the online mess, and did say that it should have been made clearer on O2’s part, in relation to Tallaght I was to expect a call from the store apologising.
Once again, to this date, I have not received that call.
I let Paddy know this on the forum and he seems to be unimpressed, saying that “We’ve escalated this issue, but don’t have a time frame yet McAWilliams.” I honestly don’t expect a call.
On Thursday evening I had given up on the O2 stores but looking at forums I saw people were getting phones in O2 Dundrum and Grafton street. I felt determined and was first into the store in Dundrum on Friday morning, “no phones in stock”, they were “holding phones for people on lists”, LISTS I said you guys have been telling me for weeks you are not doing a list, oh no this was “the prelaunch list”, bullshit since people on forums who were not on lists walked in the day before and picked up a phone. Once again I was left frustrated by O2.
So into town I went, I had gathered from the forums that the experience store in Grafton Street was my best choice since they got the majority of stock since they are a major apple outlet. No joy there they had none at all in the store had no idea when they may arrive “possibly tomorrow” but who knows. Went up to Carphonewarehouse Grafton Street and was told that they did have some arriving, but they were been held for corporate customers, I asked why since CPW has never held phones since launch day, and was told that its because the directors of the company said so, the manager there did say he tried to argue it with them but got nowhere, but he did say a delivery was arriving to the Stephens Green branch, so I ran up there and begged the guy to hold one for me, the other option being me sitting in the store until the delivery arrived, he said he would hold one. Could I trust him though, I decided to recall into all the other stores that morning funny thing is by doing this I saw 2 people in the O2 Experience Store getting shiny boxed new iPhones, I eventually made it to the counter and asked had the stock arrived to be told no we held these for these guys, this is after been told that they do not hold phones for anyone. Anyhow Stephens Green came true and thats how I got my iPhone.
So why the ongoing saga, well today I decided to ring the stores again, this time I wanted to try and get a dock for the iPhone at home, I tried ringing the stores near me in work, Carphonewarehouse first since I swore never to shop in O2 stores again, they answered promptly and Michelle (great girl) told me I would have to go down to order one, needing one now I decided to bite the bullet and ring O2 Baggot Street and after 2 hours I have still not got through, I also tried the store at the top of Grafton Street, eventually I got through and was told that they did have them, but have none at the moment. Since I had them on the phone I also wanted to let them know I had got an iPhone so could be taken off their list, to which I was told that “everyone had been phoned last week on the list” to get phones and that the list no longer existed, funny that cause I never got a call, whats going on there? they did tell me to try the most difficult number in Ireland to get through on the O2 experience store on Grafton Street.
After an hour and a half of the phone either being engaged, sounding like it does not exist and occasionally ringing off I got through, only for the phone to be put on the counter and left there for 8 minutes, without a hello or any sort of chat. I was able to hear the staff talk between themselves talk to the occasional customer, but not one word was uttered to me!
After as I said 8 minutes of me saying hello, hello, hello I gave up and hung up the phone only to retry and hear the engaged tone.
So thats why they are engaged all the time, they take the phone off the hook, I feel like ringing customer care but what good will that do me! I am awaiting so many fecking calls at this stage, whats the point!
So if anyone from O2 reads this please let me know if you really truly value your customers, although when you look higher up I suppose at CEO Danuta Grey announcing the first generation iPhone launch being great for the “Apple Freaks”, why should her minions pay any respect.
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[...] John has just published a lengthy post on his disappointing O2 store experience. He tried emails and calls to no [...]
[...] or email. Thanks for visiting - Damien.John has a very long rant about his bad experiences with O2 Experience Stores and their staff. Just a quick piece from the rant: they did tell me to try the most difficult [...]
That’s quite the story, sorry to hear all the trouble you were put through.
I got my iPhone on the day of the launch (July 11th) from the O2 experience store on grafton street and I can relate to the problems you described. Simply put, my O2 Experience is probably very far from where O2 would like it to be. I can honestly say that dealing with O2 was one of the most difficult consumer experiences I have ever had. Unhelpful is too generous a term.
I had the very same issues trying to phone the grafton street store and to this day I still have to watch my temper when dealing with them. I find them chronically unhelpful.
I’m very glad I got my iPhone, but the entire experience was a relations disaster as far as O2 are concerned. The best part of that weekend was finding out I had finally got my service sorted and didn’t have to deal with the O2 customer care again.
What a saga - I hope it was worth it…
I’ve been an O2 customer since the early ESAT days too, but haven’t dealt with them for years, only CPW.
Except for once.
I bought my first iPod in the store in Nassau St. It was faulty, and when I brought it back they said I had to send it to Apple. ‘No, my contract is with you, the supplier’… ‘no you have to send it to Apple’ and we yoyo’d like that for a while. I had checked the info at the office for consumer affairs (O2 had a notice – illegal btw – saying that faulty iPods had to go back to Apple) and I was right, so I tried again. No joy. They were incredibly offhand and totally not-giving-a-fuck.
In the end I rang the small claims court who said that yes I would have a claim and that I should serve notice. I went in again and told them this but was met with more snooty offhandness. So I went home and wrote them a letter saying that if I didn’t have a refund or replacement within seven (or whatever) days I was hereby serving notice… I cc’d it by fax to every top O2 person in Ireland I could find.
I had a phonecall within an hour saying a replacement iPod was there ready to be collected.
No apology though.
Top post. I hope the feckers see it.
Debbie
Great Post John,
The iPhone 3G launch weekend has already gone down in history as a debacle, here in the North too.
Don’t know why it was all so problematic, I doubt it was as simple as ‘Apple have not sent us enough iPhones’ though.
I ordered mine via the O2 website - not an easy process as their servers were continually crashing - and I kept getting error messages with my order. I was surprised when DHL dropped me the ‘we called but you were out’ card on the Friday at the end of that week, the order process had worked after all, but I did not know that from the poor feedback and behaviour of the O2 website. I didn’t bother trying to buy one in store (anyway it was 12th July holiday weekend here and most shops were closed). Finally collected it myself from the DHL depot.
My upgrade to iPhone 3G was further marred by Apples equally disastrous launch of the new MobileMe service, it didn’t work for several days at first and still does not appear to be delivering 100% of promised experience. The MobileMe service has improved, but has a ways to go yet.
Glad you decided to write this post, these things are better aired and blogs are a terrific way to do just that.
(Bet you feel better now you’ve posted it too - Therapy!)
Apart form all the launch woes though and having had the iPhone for over a month now things are settling down and I’m enjoying the iPhone tremendously, especially with the new apps.
Onward and Upward…
Cheers.
On the phones ringing out at O2 experience - for the hour I was waiting for them to get my phone sorted, the phones on the desk upstairs were ringing continually. Now, in fairness, there was no one spare to handle it then because there was a queue of about 30 people, but the two lads didn’t seem too bothered by the constant ringing. Almost like they were used it it…
Another O2 peeve - I’m still waiting for an e-mail back from iphone3g @o2.ie to let me know that there’s iPhones in stock as promised in this e-mail:
Hi
When iPhone 3G becomes available again, we will e-mail you straight away
Thank you,
O2 Online shop team.
Here’s a free customer service tip for nothing, guys - don’t make a promise if you can’t keep it. It might get the customer out of the store now, but you’re pretty much assuring they won’t come back once they find out you’ve been lying to them.
But as I pointed out at Alexia’s blog - CPW weren’t exactly guiltless in this - taking names for waiting lists, and then cancelling them by managerial fiat without telling the people on the list about it.
In all my interactions with phone salesfolk over the last month (O2 and CPW), it seems that the default attitude is to assume the customer is a moron (though - from dealing with the general public myself in the past - this may be an assumption based in fact in some cases). A few of them did seem genuinely helpful and didn’t even lie to my face once, but in general, I’m guessing it’s a pay peanuts/get monkeys problem.
Thanks guys for the comments guys.
Woesinger the difference with the phone call today is the fact that they did answer but left the phone on the counter thinking no one was there. I understand them being busy for the past few weeks, I was phoning them all daily, but what happened today is unacceptable.
The only reason I blogged about this is because enough is enough, I would never get away with this in my job.
And I did forget to say that after all this I am thrilled with the phone it is proving to be more then I thought.
Don’t get me wrong - I wasn’t defending them at all. Leaving the phone on the counter is totally out of order. Just reporting what I saw - which was that they didn’t seem to give a monkey’s about the constantly ringing phone.
And yes, the phone is full of Shiny - beautiful user interface Shiny.
Hey dude
sorry to hear your troubles
i got one the day of release, mind it took 4 days to get it to work with my exchange server
Hey there Steve,
Long time etc, as I say I have one now and love it.
I could have changed network and given up on the iPhone but I stuck by them giving them chance after chance after chance and every time they gave me another kick, its just a shame that a company I have respected for so long, even recommended to people, has lost every ounce of respect I had for them, by just playing silly buggers.
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I really do hope it was worth it JW. I certainly wouldn’t have the tenacity or patience. Whatever about O2 I think you’ve handled it brilliantly.
I wonder if Apple feel they made a bad choice in partner? All the negative PR and experiences by a lot of people I’ve read has put me right off the thought of getting one (at least till the higher memory editions).
I had a very negative experience with O2 recently in relation to ordering a replacement blackberry for the current one that died under the warranty. Went into the O2 store 50 Grafton street, on the Monday,eplained the situation , and left assuming that the phone was ordered and would be ready for collection next day. When I called in Tuesday evening after work no sign of the blackberry and no temp phone available except in Blessington..I live in town…the girl just smirked at me and told me, “sur go borrow one from a friend”..I walked off disgusted…again waiting a long time for service about 20 mins due to understaffing and the o2 experience closed for a refit….
Called in on the wednesday..sure it would be waiting for…turns out it was never ordered on the Monday….and I was not in the system. At this stage I let them see I was p*ssed off..and got the lad behind the counter to print off an offical completed order. Again no replacement offered. Ended up having the buy at 29€ handset at the CPW. I have made an offical complaint to 02 and await to hear back from them. I am insisting on the €29 being refunded to me…I shouldn’t have had to pay for a phone while waiting for the replacement to arrive…well here’s hoping that by Friday I have my phone back….
Really bad show there Mary, I believe the O2 store on Grafton Street are looking for managers at present (my brother applied) he did not get the job for being to aggresive in his interview, When he asked what the hell do they mean by that, he was told one of his answers did not suit O2 policy, the question was if he was to manage O2 experience on Grafton Street what would he do in his first 30 days, he response He would evaluate staff and get rid of the deadwood.
Trust me my brother would have been perfect for their flag ship store, he is exactly what they need, he has been managing places for years now, and always ends up leaving because he is so good that employers want him to run their whole business, something he is not willing to do.
His answer though is exactly what that store needs but it is not how O2 work, they seem to want to keep hold of the crap staff they have, which is not the impression I got from my very long phone call from someone high up, which is a real shame.
I do hope though you get sorted out somehow!
Hello again everyone…glad to report that O2 couried my replacement blackberry into the grafton street before lunchtime today…and I also received a call from the present manager in the 02 store regarding rubbish servie. No queing today as the store manager told me to request to speak to him directly when I arrived! and handed over my phone. All done within 10 minutes, the way it should have been…..
Ball got rolling this morning when I rang 1909 down in limerick and spoke to a lovely girl on the phone who immediately spoke to her manager about the situation, and my email which I sent to customerfirst@o2.com, I resent on to her. This email for forwarded straight away to the store manager…who was on the spare blower to me within the hour. Obviously he must have got a bit of a b*lloxing from someone. Tried making excuses for the crap service in the shop. I myself formerly worked in customer services, in BOI Group and told him straight up that, if any staff member treated a customer in the way I was treated they would be fired.
I agree your brother is kind of person that store needs. There is no supervision in there and staff are clearly not trained on procedure and how to handle situations out of the ordinary. I can’t believe that he didn’t get the job, I suppose they didn’t want to rock the boat with the current staff..who are pretty much getting away with murder….
The CPW were really nice about it when I returned the phone to them…I kept all the wrappers on everything since I only got it yesterday and gave me a full refund of my money….can’t believe though that people have to go to those lengths to get an acceptable level of service from o2!
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You are the stupidest person i have ever read anything by. Boo fucking hoo, you couldnt get an i-phone, get over yourself you twat
well i dont believe you, you start off by telling everyone you where on a waiting list with three o2 stores, when in fact there was no waiting list at all it was first come first serve why do u think people where queing all night for an iphone…
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