FUBAR= Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition. (hey, my Mama and Daddy raised a right proper gentleman).In several posts I made over the weekend, I made note that several BBHub readers have been telling me that calls to Cingular Wireless' toll-free help line for information about the new Cingular BlackBerry 8700c seem to have been received with bewilderment by Cingular support reps.
I've acknowledged a pattern here: when it has come to this rollout, Cingular has chosen to serve their national accounts first, then selected high-profile retail locations, then other retailers, and at the bottom of the chain, web and phone-based ordering.
In Cingular's rollout "strategy" meetings, they may have identified their rollout schedule as I have described. Yet there's one key factor those Cingular execs seem to have overlooked. With knowledge about, and availability of, the new 8700c's spreading throughout the distribution chain, they seemed to have overlooked the Blogosphere as a key conduit that would spread this information outward from national business accounts, on to retail and then to consumers.
That means you.
Many consumers - fans of the BlackBerry who cannot wait to get their hands on an 8700c - read this BlackBerry blog and others. And they have been jumping up and down about this new product, waiting to know when they can get their hands on one.Who can they be expected to call? Well, customer "service" in many cases.
What I'd like to know is why didn't a memo go out to the call centers, saying something to the effect of there's been lots of publicity about the BlackBerry 8700c, it's listed on our site, all the blogs as well as major national newspapers are writing about and have reviewed it, we'll be fielding lots of calls, and here's what the customer service reps need to know about the BlackBerry 8700c features and availability if they are asked about it.
For Cingular customer "service" to not know about this new product is nothing less than a failure of vision, a failure of planning, and a failure of execution at the highest levels.
1. Couldn't agree with you more. As a resident here in Atlanta, where Cingular's corp. HQ is, I was stunned to hear the wide range of responses from the local stores. They ranged from bewilderment to downright rudeness. They must have been mad that a non-employee knew more than they did about a product launch. :)
I would be interested to hear reports from Verizon subscribers on how the 7130e launch went down.
Posted at 9:17AM on Nov 28th 2005 by Jim L.