[if(is_geek)…]

This is part 1 of a multi-part post on my battle to get an iPhone for myself and a Blackberry Pearl Flip for my wife from Roger’s wireless. At the time of this writing, the saga is still on-going so I cannot say how many episodes there will be…

One of the many cool things about working for VendAsta is the fact that all developers can get themselves a smartphone and be reimbursed for the cost. While this does qualify as an awesome perk of the job, it makes very good sense for a company working to develop advanced web applications: if all developers have smartphones, then no one has an excuse for not testing any work targeted towards the mobile platform. While the choice of phone is left up to the developer, the vast majority of VendAstafarians carry iPhones. There are a few BlackBerries amongst the partners and a couple of Google Android phones have appeared recently, but still, the majority are iPhones. So, I was fairly pumped when I called Roger’s to order my very own iPhone on Saturday, November 15th!

Now, if you have ever dealt with Roger’s you are no doubt thinking, “it’s a mistake to call them on a Saturday – that’s when they have their newbs and retards manning the phones.” While this is technically true, I was not afraid. You see, I had done my research ahead of time. I knew exactly which phones I was ordering and which voice and data plans I wanted them on. I didn’t need any service, I needed an order entry monkey on the other end of the line. I couldn’t imagine that this could get messed up by even the worst Roger’s had to offer. As it turned out, my ability to imagine their worst was far inferior to their ability to screw up.

The man I spoke to in the Roger’s callcenter had a very rudimentary grasp of the English language. He was most definitely not fluent enough in the language to be doing the job he was doing. I informed him that I wanted to order an iPhone for myself on the phone number ending in 3077 and a Blackberry Pearl Flip for my wife on the number ending in 2977. I went through this a couple of times with him and had him repeat it back to me. He then told me, it was all done, the phones were ordered and started to say “Thank you for choosing Roger’s”. I stopped him. We hadn’t discussed data plans yet. He told me that he left me on my current plan for both phones. I said that would not work – we had regular cell phones and were ordering smartphones: we needed to add data plans. He then told me that I should not order the data plans until I had the phones in-hand, otherwise I would be paying for the data plans while the phones were being shipped. I accepted that and ended the call.

About 15 minutes after that first call ended, I was still feeling uneasy about what had transpired so I called Roger’s back to confirm all of the details of my order. This time I got a woman on the phone and English was obviously her first language. With zero communication barriers she proceeded to tell me all about my order: an order for an iPhone for the number ending in 2977. That was all. My iPhone was ordered on my wife’s number. My wife’s Blackberry was not ordered at all. I told the woman to cancel the order so we could do it right. She told me that the order could not be cancelled because it had already shipped. I was flabbergasted. At 7:30 on a Saturday evening my order had shipped 15 minutes after I had placed it? I thought this was bullshit and I told the woman on the phone as much. She then clarified that by “has shipped” she really meant “has progressed far enough in their system that she cannot cancel it from her department”. Okay, a little more reasonable. I asked to speak to a supervisor – I used to work in a callcenter myself and I know that the supervisors can always do more than the front-line grunts. She told me that there were no supervisors in on the weekends. I knew this was probably bullshit as well, but I was tired of fighting. I said I would call back on Monday to get things fixed and she, helpfully, gave me the number for calling the shipping department directly, as they would have the ability to cancel the order before it actually shipped.

Monday morning. I called them within ten minutes of their lines opening up for calls. Again I was told by a front-line grunt that it was too late to cancel the order – it had gone too far. I again asked to speak with a supervisor. I was told that the supervisor might be able to cancel it but it typically takes five business days to cancel an order. WHAT? I called in within 15 minutes of placing an order to cancel it and now I was being told it would take FIVE DAYS to cancel it? I demanded the supervisor on the line immediately.

This supervisor was the first person at Roger’s who was actually helpful. Again I was told that there would be a five day delay if I were to cancel the order. She had a suggestion for me, however, which would not make me wait any longer for my phone: leave the iPhone order as it is, order a Blackberry for my phone number and switch the SIM cards when they arrived. That should result in each phone having the right number and no more delays. I thought this was a great idea. She set it up and we discussed the data plans I wanted. The data plans were not ordered at that time, she also told me to wait until I had the phones in-hand to save money, but she put the full details of what I wanted into the memos on my account so that I could just call in and say “order what’s in the memo” when I had the phones.

With everything finally on the right track I was ready to be done with it all. I was told, however, to call back in a couple of days to make sure that everything was on track and that the order was actually passed along to shipping. This was annoying but after the screw up the first time I was willing to keep on top of it all. I called back on Wednesday and found out that all of the information had been placed on the account, but the order for the BlackBerry had not actually been placed. Perhaps I spoke too soon about that supervisor being helpful. I got the order placed and after all of this I was pissed off enough that I wanted to be compensated for my trouble and my time. I told the guy on the phone that this whole process had been a nightmare and I wanted to know what he was going to do to make me a happy customer again. He offered me unlimited free local calling for three months. I had seen something like that on their website and I asked, “doesn’t everyone get that?”. He told me no, only new customers get that, we never give it to existing customers upgrading their hardware. It was a small victory. A very small victory. I was nonetheless okay with it. I had been inconvenienced and I got something to try and make me feel better. If only it had ended there…

The saga will be continued in part two…

Update 12/22/2008: Episode 2: A Lack of a Phone has been released.

Update 12/30/2008: Episode 3: Revenge of the Pissed has been released.

Update 01/12/2009: Episode 4: A New Phone has been released.

Update 01/21/2009: Episode 5: The Empire Bills Back has been released.

Update 02/10/2009: Episode 6: Return of the Mad Guy has been released.

Update 07/06/2009: Episode 7: Seeing Red has been released.

Update 07/13/2009: Episode 8: Resolution has been released.

Update 07/27/2009: Roger’s Wars Epilogue has been released.