Today was a great day. I was feeling under the weather for the past week, and increasingly so today, so I stayed home and caught some sleep. I also have a huge cold sore on my upper lip, which now looks like I just got a horrible collagen treatment. But today was a great day. Why? I just received some wonderful customer service from a worldwide company when I thought, and always exclaim, customer service is dead.
I usually would omit the company’s name; however, it’s a bit obvious where I went once you know which phone I got…so, I called the AT&T store in my town on Tuesday regarding the iPhone and how to buy one. The gent on the phone said I could pay with either cash, credit card, or gift card. I told him I would probably be in the next day. I sold my iPod Touch last night for $200. The person purchasing it gave me cash. Instead of driving across town (10 miles) to the credit union to deposit the cash, I just figured I could take the cash to the store and get my phone. Since the store always closes before I get home from work, and Kari was begging to go to the library, I figured we could run out for 30 minutes. Today, I waited in line behind the customers already there. Both of the people had escalated situations, so Kari and I waited patiently for about 20 minutes. I get up to the counter and the gent starts to put in my order for my 8 gig iPhone. Cash not an option. So, he sells me two $100 gift cards. Enters the order again. Swipes the first gift card. The software program will not let him change the card amount to $100. It keeps populating the $212.08. He closes the software and restarts it. Tries it again. Nada. Same thing. The salesman calls the manager over and several other salesmen. The salesman explains to me that the gift cards will work in the store to buy an iPhone, but not on a presale. It only allows for one method of payment. They then see if they have any in stock. They went back and found one, a 16 gig. It was an order that had been there for 5 days and their policy is after 7 days, they can be sold. They were going to give me the 16 gig for all of my trouble, but they called the guy and he said he’d be up later in the evening to pick it up. They then checked other stores. Nada. Then they suggest to void the gift card transaction, I get my cash back and go to the credit union to deposit it, then come back. I said that was fine. They then pull out manuals and consult the help desk. The gift card transaction cannot be voided. Kari’s getting antsy as it is going on an hour of being in the store. The manager gives her a display Blackberry to play with. She’s delighted and begins “calling” Papa and Grandma on her new red hotness. The saleman and the manager go in the back and call the Regional Sales Manager (big boss man over the region, I’m told). He told them to see if it would be alright to apply the gift cards to my account (we’re current cellular customers), for me to pay for the iPhone on my credit card, give me the next 8 gig iPhone that comes in the store, any headset, car charger and case I wanted in the store. I was surprised by this and said that would be fine. I told the salesman that I had no idea which case, headset or charger to get as I hadn’t really researched it. The salesman in training said he’d hook me up. The salesman said, “He did say any headset, charger and case.” So, once the saleman in training came back to the counter, he had a three pack of iPhone skins, a namebrand car charger, and a Jawbone headset. He told me these things were top of the line, especially the headset. Sure enough. I looked at the headset online when I got home, after an hour and a half in the store. Not bad, salesman in training. Not bad at all AT&T for taking care of business – thank you.