October 3rd, 2007
iPhone: a different kind of customer?
Apple is used to a warm, fuzzy installed base. But then there’s AT&T with its legacy of Ma Bell-style “we don’t care” customer service. However, the sudden price cut on the iPhone reveals that some customers are prepared to play hardball.
According to an Associated Press report on Monday, Dongmei Li of Queens, N.Y. is suing Apple and AT&T for $1M for the $200 price cut of her 8GB iPhone.
According to Li’s lawsuit, filed on Sept. 24 in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, the price reduction injured early purchasers like herself because they cannot resell the product for the same profit as those who bought the cell phone following the price cut.
However, most angry customers won’t sue. But they can call it quits and go looking elsewhere for phones and services.
According to reader Arnold Marquez, his sister got the runaround from AT&T over the refund and decided to pare down her services from the company. He said the dispute with AT&T over the $200 refund will cost the provider some $2,500.
I pinged Aileen Ochoa about her beef.
Unlike Dongmei Li, Ochoa isn’t so mad about the price cut. It’s all about how AT&T handled the refund. It’s a classic story:
It is the fact that I phoned my local AT&T store to see if I was eligible for a refund, and I was told, yes, I was eligible. I bought my phone on August 23rd. When I went to the store that day, September 6th (the day after the initial announcement of the price drop), it was late in the day, and I was told by a clerk that they were closing and to come back another day. He “promised” that that day was absolutely not the last day for me to request a refund.
When I returned, I was told that I was too late and that September 6th had in fact been the last day. My complaints to the store were met with annoyance and a dismissive shrug. No apology or attempt to explain.
I decided to call AT&T Customer Care, and the person there told me that there was no one other than the store manager to complain to. Asked what exactly was AT&T’s policy regarding the refunds, the customer care rep said that AT&T had no policy and that each store manager was being allowed to handle it however they wanted and that there was no district manager, supervisor or other person in the entire company I could complain to. I found this to be ridiculous.
Ochoa said she had 3 phones on a family plan and a line for a broadband connection. Her monthly bill was about $250 a month.
Following the dispute, she cut the Internet services (eating a $175 charge) and decreased her monthly phone minutes from 2,100 to 550. Her bill was cut by more than half. She figures that AT&T will lose $2,550 of her business.
Apple in its developer docs said that customers will not only use the iPhone differently than a computer, but “they also feel differently about it.”
Not differently enough, perhaps, when customers get the runaround.
David Morgenstern has covered the Mac market and other technology segments for 20 years. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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