Apple gets up early and blogs to dig itself out of iPhone customer service hole

Davey Winder
Sunday, 27 July 2008 17:40

Your IT - Mobility

I doubt that the former could ever apply to Apple, so sadly must conclude it is the latter. Does the phrase getting too big for its boots spring to the mind of anyone else? Maybe now that Bill Gates has retired from his day job at Microsoft he is providing strategic customer service advice to Apple.

Of course, it is not just MobileMe that has managed to win itself a virtual raspberry from unhappy customers the world over. There is also the small case of the iPhone 3G itself.

It seems that, to paraphrase the anonymous official Apple blogger, the company had a lot more traffic to its shops than it anticipated. Some two weeks after the official launch of the iPhone 3G, which you might expect to attract the usual hyperbole fuelled customers waiting in line for hours, they are still there.

At least they are outside the flagship US Apple Stores. Up until now Apple has been telling customers that if they want an iPhone 3G then they need to stay in line. That has changed and it appears that some stores will pre-qualify customers who can then go do something less boring and come back later to collect the iPhone.

What's more, according to the official Apple iPhone 3G availability checker "all Apple Retail Stores will now open at 8.00am every day  but Sunday" instead of opening at 10.00am. Of course, some of those flagship US stores have already been opening early and still not getting the queues down by much so it waits to be seen what impact this announcement has.

One thing that might help is the fact that the checker does say that iPhone 3G shipments are arriving most nights, and customers can check availability by logging in after 9.00pm to see which stores have handsets in stock for the next morning.

Apple must be keeping everything crossed that the latest customer service strategy works and these hiccups get ironed out of the system. After all, the impressive sales figures posted last week will not continue forever if, while concentrating on producing truly stunning hardware design, Apple forgets that the customer and not the designer is king...