Tuesday, December 7, 2010

AT&T + iPhone = The Worst Carrier

AT&T is now the worst carrier. Or, so Consumer Reports says. Today, I was informed so by the article of the same leading sentence from cnnmoney.com.  Almost half of the AT&T subscribers surveyed are iPhone users. Most of them stated the most dissatisfaction. This being sad news considering the mobile carrier gains “2.6 million wireless customers last quarter, half of whom were new iPhone customers”.

What I fail to understand is why AT&T did not come out on top considering the near perfect conditions? While all companies were preparing for touch screen phones, Apple was the first to premiere their iPhone, to great fanfare. This grand premiere was exclusively granted to AT&T followed by the next models and the new iPhone 4. The article stated about 6 million AT&T subscribers are iPhone users. 6 million new customers, within the last three years, all because AT&T had the iPhone. So what does AT&T do with exclusive rights and millions of new customers? They provide mediocre service. Their service fails to match up with the technology of the iPhone. Thus, their biggest critic becomes these users.

AT&T’s Response:

"We take this seriously and we continually look for new ways to improve the customer experience," said Fletcher Cook, spokesman for AT&T.

It might be too late. It might be three years and millions of angry iPhone users too late. In 2011, in a few months, Verizon will sell the iPhone. While AT&T iPhone customers defect and Verizon gains new subscribers, the rest of the cell phone industry and customers will scratch their head wondering the reasons AT&T failed on a great opportunity.

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