Beauty and the beast

Well, I finally took the plunge and got an iPhone. After a seeing the coverage in the press, and a good recommendation from my buddy Graham, who knows of what he speaks regarding user experiences, I went to the Apple store and tried one out.

The preliminaries: Having heard some of the stories about activation, I called my company's phone plan administrator, and she called AT&T to see if there would be any difficulty in activating my number on the iPhone. They report that my number has no "Foundation Number" and that we should be OK.

After work, off to the Apple store in Burlington. The store was packed, but the employees were moving the customers through. There were plenty of iPhones on display, all activated so you could check them out. There seemed to be plenty in stock. After handling one for a few minutes and trying my favorite websites, there was no question...this gadget is magic. So, I bought one.

Unboxing: The packaging is the usual hyper-elegant Apple packaging. Maybe too elegant - I kinda felt like one of the apes approaching the monolith in 2001.

Good news: Got an iPhone.

Bad news: I got home and tried to activate it. No luck - iTunes reports "AT&T has determined your current number cannot be used".

The descent into the first circle: Into AT&T hell on activation – despite having our company admin check this in advance, the AT&T activation trolls won’t let me activate on my current number. I’m going to have to try and activate on my home account (which is AT&T) as long as I can transfer to my current number.

The second circle: My interactions with AT&T just get crazier: I got permission from my company to transfer my business number to a personal account. I called AT&T and they tell me that I can't transfer my number to my personal account, unless I transferred to a business billing. Huh? I thought the point was to move to a personal account - which is exactly what the AT&T policy on iPhone activation says to do.

The third circle: I called the support line for my existing personal account. While they said they couldn't help me directly, they said they could help transfer my work number to the personal account. Many transfers to various different AT&T departments later, I got an extremely polite person who could crack the code: she consolidated all my phone numbers onto a new account number, preserving all the features of my current personal account. (I also have to note that Bertha, the AT&T rep who helped me with this, was polite and constructive throughout.)

The escape: Well, Bertha's magic worked. After getting off the phone, I waited a few minutes and plugged my iPhone in. iTunes springs to life, and with trembling fingers, I enter in my phone number. Success! After a bit of entering account info, iTunes offers to add the data plan to my account. I'm bask in the well-lit world of Apple service.

I'm off and syncing; I'll update on the actual experience with the phone once I recover from the AT&T experience.

The bottom line: AT&T's policy on iPhones makes no business sense. Their admin staff is clearly going through hoops dealing with activation issues, which must cost them plenty in labor costs, let alone the reputation damage. In addition, I’m trying to spend more money with them for the data plan, which I’ll gladly pay. I have my account administrator’s support in adding the phone to the corporate account. If AT&T just changed their policy, or empowered their employees to make the decision, they’d have another $240/year in their pocket, they'd lower their admin costs, and have a happy customer to boot!

There's another lesson here: There is someone at every company who is on the clue train, and will actually help the customer solve their problems, rather than just read the three-ring notebook of policy. Those people are gold, and need to be recognized. Thanks, Bertha!