Shortages Of Product & Service

Just because I look like Charlie Brown does not mean that people have to act like Lucy.

My cell phone while perfectly operational otherwise was having issues sending and receiving calls.?Some incoming calls went straight to voicemail while some outgoing calls, including those to my voicemail, resulted in a busy tone.?Hang up and call again to maybe get through or possibly have the same result.?What gives?

My carrier is beginning to phase out service for phones like mine.?The manufacturer has just discontinued support.?My plan tier has also been discontinued.?As such, I am subject to disruption of service until they fully discontinue support.?

A competitor was offering a phone that appeals to me.?And it is in stock and on sale.?I needed to upgrade and did not want to risk being without a phone.?I went into the store and the phone on sale was not available, but they had one in the warehouse.?They set one aside for me and I signed the contract.?As I am self-employed, I had to pay for the phone in full and there would be a hold on my account for the total MSRP of the phone until I took delivery the next day.

My phone accidentally got sent to the wrong store where it was promptly sold.?No worries I would have one by no later than the 9th (the date this article is being published).?Yesterday, I got an e-mail saying that the delay would be a little longer… a week or two at the most.?This morning I learned that my phone is on back-order and should come in by Valentine’s Day or my money back.?

Interesting enough, the reason it is on back-order is that large-format retailers, specialty stores, and other carriers have bought up all the stock.?If I wanted to, I could drive 2 hours and pick one up… at full price.

The sale is still ongoing and the phones are still erroneously listed as “in stock”.?Or at least they were last time I checked.

Why sell someone a cell phone that they cannot take physical possession of for 90 days? And why put it on sale?

?The point of a sale is to bring in new customers and/or get rid of old merchandise.?This is accomplishing neither of those. There is no old merchandise to liquidate and if my current carrier can get their act together then I might stay.?I know in the past that when I have changed carriers, the old one does everything it can to keep me.?This one kind of took me for granted when I did not immediately upgrade my phone the minute I was eligible to do so.?There was no “upgrade” in my mind.?I had the best phone possible before the company decided to stop selling phones in the US.?Some might argue that my new phone is not as good or at least it was not until support was dropped for it.

I was moving from a large multinational carrier to a smaller regional player that supposedly had better customer service.?It is customer service from a marketing perspective that is currently lacking.?The CSRs with whom I spoke have their hands tied.?Because what I am experiencing is not wholly their fault, they can do little.?This is exactly the time that the company should be doing more… offering more to help their customers and potential customers.

This is the time when companies that do something rather than wait thrive.?By offering exceedingly excellent customer service, they can win new customers.?Maintaining the status quo gets you lost in the shuffle.?A bad experience like mine gets shared exponentially.?So does going above and beyond.?

Someone needs to say “While we did not create this shortage, we did sell you a phone we reasonably knew could not be delivered to you.?Here is what we are going to do to resolve this situation…”?Or my current carrier could match the price of the phone and service to keep me.?They have a stockpile of the exact phone I ordered.

But no one is doing that.?They are all waiting on the world to change.?They realize that there is little loyalty left in the cell phone industry.?I am one of the few that does not carrier hop.?But my loyalty is not rewarded.?If I had to make an educated guess, my current carrier has made more profit off of my business than the average customer in both actual profits and percentage.?Make me want to stay and I will.?Treat me like I am disposable and I will do the same.?

Those companies that thrive will be the ones that realize that any investment now will have a large reliable return over the long run.