It’s ten days before the release of the fourth A-phone and we are getting ready to take pre-orders. The Company has learned from its first few launches and wants to make sure we offer this new phone through as many channels as possible. Pre-orders are for the planners. We are happy to ensure customers that if they order their phones on the 15th of the month they can expect their phones on the 25th of the month, the same day we are going to launch the phone in stores. In fact, this is the widest release of any A-phone and all stores are prepared to launch on the 25th. The Computer Store, the Biggest Deal chain and even the Frequency Hut are all going to carry the A-phone now. With pre-orders, we are planning on shipping phones directly to the consumer, thereby alleviating the in-store traffic and diversifying our activation power. Double the business, same customer service. So far this all makes sense.
The 15th of the month comes around and it’s like launch day has been every other year. There is a line outside the door prior to business hours and customers are excited to get in and pay whatever the cost for the phone they will curse for the following year.. We are amply staffed, wearing special t-shirts and ready to sell. We open the doors and let the smiling (for once!) people run through a dozen at a time. We start entering the information and it doesn’t take long until, like each of the three preceding A-phone launch days, the computers begin to freeze. Our point of sales system (the clunky DOPUS) takes the largest electronic shit on the heads of everyone working and everyone who has been patiently waiting to get in. At 9:10am PST we know this is going to be a very long day.
Compounding with the East Coast traffic, who got a three hour head start, once the Pacific time zone joins the party, the computers are ready to break it up. I point on the screen, click the mouse and wait 5-10 minutes for the next screen to do anything. The computers crawl along, allowing each of us maybe 3 or 4 pre-orders(usually a 10 minute transaction now taking 1 hour each) before the works shut down completely at 12:30pm. At 4:30pm, it is announced that no more pre-orders will be taken. The mob, following a burst of threats and some reasonable name-calling, eventually disperses. I don’t know on what grounds, but we are even assured a lawsuit is coming.
Fail. Again. Four years in a row.
Capacity has been reached and once the dust finally settles, The Company has pre-ordered a record number of network-sucking, call-dropping smart phones. The suckers, it seems, are of endless supply. This time we are counted among them. Brooklyn was half-right; he and I wouldn’t, but The Company would surely sell a shitload.
Let down by the Company we trusted to eventually get it right, we begin hosting the lonely receiving line of apologies. What do we say?
“Sorry, but you can come in on the 25th and still get the phone on the same day that everyone else can get it.”
“No, unfortunately we can’t hold one for you, even though you’ve been waiting here for 2 hours already.”
“Yes, you’ll probably want to line-up early, again, on the 25th.”
“I’m sure we’ll get a bunch. The Company probably banked on reserving less than half for pre-order and plenty more for the actual launch day.”
“Because of all the pre-orders, we probably won’t even be that busy on launch day.”
“Just in case, get here right around opening, at 6am, on the 25th and you’ll get your new phone right away--possibly before those who did pre-order.”
No one is pleased. The answer is not the one they wanted. It further reinforces the existing Mutual Pre-Dissatisfaction and still means another trip to the dreaded Phone Store. It still means there are no guarantees. Instead of a solid Company response, we are handing out ‘almost positive’s and ‘they’d be crazy not to’s, asking the customer to be satisfied with that result. I feel awful, but what can we do? We all just got screwed by the guys who can’t lose.
