I hesitate to write this up given the support Rogers is showing for mesh (and I truly am thankful for that), but given how frustrating this has been and how many people I've told already, I figure I might as well. It's become a bloody dinner party topic already.
What a service disaster I've had with these people. It's especially silly given that I've been ready to pay them for new hardware for about a month, and they have been seemingly unable to take my money. Yes, really. Here's the whole sordid tale of woe:
It started back before Christmas. I received a lovely, expensive direct mail piece from them - well, Rogers "Office of the Chief Marketing Officer" actually. All embossed and lovely, with a stamp and everything. Having spent the odd dollar on marketing (or several hundred million in fact) in past lives, I thought "Hmmm that's an expensive piece...I'm going to open that." Which I do, to read that I am being invited to buy a BlackBerry at a discounted price.
This is great!
Except, of course, for the fact that I have had a BlackBerry, from Rogers, for several years, and had been spending upwards of several hundred dollars a month with them for some time. "Hmmm" I say to myself. "This doesn't feel like a good use of Rogers' scarce ad dollars". So, being the good guy I am - and a little ticked off with the silliness, frankly - *and* given that their CMO has put his name and phone number on the lovely letter, I decide to call him (sidebar: in case you don't know, these things are done by ad agencies - usually ones that specialize in direct mail. In fairness, it is quite possible that the CMO had not even seen the piece). I leave him a voicemail, including my Rogers phone number, alerting him to the fact that it could be that his agency has messed something up ("I'd expect that 'BlackBerry? Yes/No' would be a basic filter on your data run"). And I get on with my day.
Now, imagine my surprise - and tremendous impressed-ness - when I get an SMS from him later that day, acknowledging my voicemail and thanking me for my call. I respond, thinking "nicely done" and figure that is that.
But no. Several weeks later, what falls through my mailbox? Another lovely letter. From Rogers' CMO guy. Letter goes along the lines of "We recently sent you a letter inviting you to buy a discounted BlackBerry in error - we know you have one already - what we meant to send you was this offer of a new high-speed BlackBerry at a great price." And I think "good on them - they made a mistake, they recognized that they looked silly to a big batch of customers, likely valuable ones, and either they or their agency is making good." I mention it to a few people, decide not to to take them up on it, and move on.
Fast forward to about a month ago. Now, all the cool kids have the new 8700 and I figure "okay, time for me to get one too." So I trundle on down to my local Rogers store (Bloor West Village, Toronto) to buy one. No expectations of the previous great deal, though I expected that they could see that I spent a bit and might cut me a deal, as tends to happen with these sorts of things. I walk in. Say "Hi. I want to buy a new 8700." Lady goes to the computer and says "it looks like you have a pending hardware upgrade. Yes?" I say "No" and she says "they just upgraded the system and it's acting kind of weird sometimes. I can't do anything else. I need to call and things are so bad right now because of this change that it takes a long time to get through. Can I call you later?" And I'm thinking "this is nuts, but hey, things happen" and say "Sure." Needless to say, she never calls. And when I call her, "the store is busy" and she can't talk. Well. Isn't that super.
Fast forward to yesterday. *Again* I walk to my local Rogers store, this time with my 5 year old in tow. Guess what? Same deal. It's now been *a month*. System is still busted. Still can't take my money. Same question about "pending upgrade". Same "can I call you?" To their credit, this time, she (a different person) does call, to say that whoever in the service department will do whatever and that in 48 hours or so they should - finally - be able to take my money.
Somehow I think we all know how this is going to turn out, don't we? How embarrassing.
Man, if it wasn't for the GSM international coverage thing, I would certainly be taking my business elsewhere.
What a goat rodeo.
UPDATE: Well, ride 'em cowboy, the goat rodeo continues. To their credit, the same woman who called me yesterday called me back late today, and was very pleasant. Sadly, that and apparently no amount of money will get me my new 'Berry. She spoke with their IT people who are apparently quite familiar with my "stuck in a pending upgrade" problem, and have *no way to solve it*. Seriously. They had hoped that whatever fix they have been working on would be in place by now, but gosh no luck. So the option presented to me? Call Rogers Customer Relations (a.k.a. in most companies as The Complaints Department) to have *them* help me figure out how I can give them my money.
Yippee-ki-yay! Goat rodeo, ho!
So parking the whole "this is silly, why should I be stuck fighting to get this done?" question, I have to wonder about a more basic business issue. I mean, I'm just one guy and the 'Berry I have will work just fine so, beyond what is now the humour of this, I'm not busted up about it. But more importantly, I can't possibly be the only person stuck in this holding pattern, can I? How many customers must there be like me, unable to upgrade to a new whatever, because of this unsolvable glitch? What kind of ripples might that be having back into hardware manufacturers, Rogers handset revenue etc.? I sure hope I am wrong, but this is making me go hmmmm...
Goat rodeo indeed.
