AT&T needs a dose of the cluestick

So, far, I'm fairly favorably impressed with the Motorola MPx200 SmartPhone. Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell whether that's an accurate impression because, thanks to some incredibly poor decision making on the part of AT&T, I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO TEST MAKING PHONE CALLS WITH IT!!!

Apparently, someone at AT&T decided that "to serve you better", it would be a good idea to "upgrade" their customer service systems. Now, I'm all for upgrades that help me, but they also apparently decided that it would be acceptable for their systems to be down for the entire weekend (Friday through Monday evening) for the upgrade process. As if this wasn't a good enough example of poor planning, it's clear that there was a good deal of wishful thinking going on as well, since the upgrade that was supposed to be completed Monday evening is still not complete, as of almost noon on Tuesday.

So, having called better than 4 times in the last 12 hours, and each time having been advised to call back "in a couple of hours, when our systems will be back up", I asked what I thought was a reasonable question: rather than asking me to call back repeatedly, couldn't someone take my number, and call me back when the systems are up? "Sorry, sir," was the answer, "we're not an outbound call center."

Now, let me get this straight. AT&T devotes a ton of resources to maintaining outbound call centers (third-party or in-house, doesn't matter which) to try to get me to switch my long-distance service, but when it comes to serving an existing customer, who JUST WANTS TO GET HIS PHONE SWITCHED ON, it's "not possible" for them to call me.

I am so unimpressed with AT&T Wireless at this point that I'm sorely tempted to return the phone just to avoid paying them for such incompetence. Here's a clue for AT&T: If you're going to disrupt your customer service system for days on end, you should at a bare minimum provide some facility whereby your customers can supply a phone number or email address at which they can be notified when the system is back up. Making your customers waste their time calling repeatedly to find out if your system is back up, particularly when it's hours or days after when you promised it would be, is a great way to lose customers. Even if I don't end up returning the phone at this point, this experience is certainly going to affect whether I would recommend AT&T (I wouldn't right now) and this particular SmartPhone.

So if you're in the market for a SmartPhone, I would take a wait & see approach. The U.S. market is finally opening up, and in addition to the MPx200, Verizon has just announced the availability of a Samsung SmartPhone(though it doesn't look to be available in my area). The Voq, which should be available early next year, looks good as well.

UPDATE: I forgot the most annoying part...each time I call, the AT&T call system asks me to “enter or say” my wireless number. Of course, IF I HAD THAT, I PROBABLY WOULDN'T BE CALLING! And there's no direct way to tell it that you don't have a number, so you have to wait for it to give up, and transfer you to an operator.

UPDATE 2: Actually found someone at AT&T willing to take some responsibility. He took my information, and promised to activate the phone and call me back as soon as their systems are back up. It remains to be seen whether this promise (unlike previous ones) will be fulfilled, but the commitment on his part is a good sign, at least.

UPDATE 3: It's now Thursday, and still no service. Doug Reilly points out a story (see the link in the comments) on CNET News about the problems, which apparently stem from a botched CRM upgrade. Backup plan, anyone?