I don’t get it. They even clearly time stamp each order. How hard can it be to send orders first come first serve?
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If I had to guess, once they realized they
couldn't fulfill the pre-orders properly, they went with some alternative approach they thought would make sense. But it's not at all clear what that approach is, because none of it appears sensible. Which is what gets me. I tend to pointlessly think about these things when they happen and this one's pretty baffling. Like, of the obvious possibilities I can imagine:
- Of course, they clearly didn't do first come, first served. Which should've been the move because it might suck for folks if all stock was gone very early, but it's objectively fair. And would give customers the forewarning to tyr and preorder from Apple or Best Buy if they really wanted launch day.
- It looks like we have folks getting their phones at varying preorder times in large cities where AT&T can and will do personal delivery, so focusing on shipping to those areas when there is-apparently-stock in many of those stores (even if not a lot of stock) doesn't make much sense. At the same time, it appears rural areas haven't been particularly frozen out or targeted (someone correct me if that seems wrong), so overall it seems there's not a population-related approach at work. Just randomness.
- It doesn't look like they favored geography either. They didn't focus on preorders within x proximity of their distribution centers or I'd suspect I would have mine as Lexington is an easy three hour trip from Plainfield IN versus some other options where folks receiving phones out Plainfield did receive theirs. It's a bit subjective, of course, but I'd say I'd be in the bubble, along with many Ohio cities, since items have shipped late the day before from there multiple times with on-time delivery the next day. But that doesn't appear to be the case.
- It doesn't seem, from what I've seen on this thread, that they particularly favored new over long-term customers. Which would be a reasonable approach. It does appear the Premier customers were fairly frozen out, which makes sense as it sounds like they have no alternatives without taking on costs they'd probably rather not. Ignoring new customers like me would make sense, because if you lose my business yeah, you lost business, but at least you didn't lose business you already account for. If you're having to make tough decisions, you'd make that one. But they didn't.
- Size of orders or accounts doesn't seem to factor, either. People who ordered multiples have seen movement on one Pro but not the other, both, or neither. I could see wanting to focus on some family order of three or four Pros, but that doesn't appear to have been the move, either.
It seems either just about
completely random or like some kind of largely secret approach. I'd wonder if it's based on some other perception of how important a person's business is-maybe going off the credit checks and estimated incomes to favor purchasers who are most likely to spend their money with them. It doesn't really look that way, but that's a hard one to try and guess anyway. But at the same time, it seems some areas are very frozen out. Lexington definitely doesn't have nearly the stock even Louisville or Cincinnati does, and that's not just the AT&T stores, but everywhere. Other folks seem to have run into similar situations while people in other locations report what sound almost like surpluses of stock.
And I think this is what gets me about it. I ordered early-ish (16th @ 1205), but arguably I could even have been outside the window to get launch day delivery by then. Which would be fine, except we all know of people who ordered mid-week who got it Friday. I didn't care so terribly much about getting it launch day until the shipping trends started to indicate that might happen based on how orders were moving for others. But then it became clear that whatever process is at work here, it's decidedly opaque and unfair. I'm still not all that upset
I'm only getting it sometime in the window they initially stated (maybe. unless they ****ed up more than we realize yet), but as a general principle and because others who arguably deserved it on launch day even more got shafted, I'm pretty damn pissed off about it. This is no way to run ****, and while it's not the front line customer services folks' fault (because it's the disjointed, piecemeal ****** Borg assimilation strategy they've pursued that is), those are the people management have elected to basically throw under the bus with this system of delivering on their preorders. Let's all be nice to them when we need to interact, yeah, but at the same time it's not wrong to be upset about it and express that appropriately so that it goes up the chain and the company gets that message. That and losing business are the only way they learn.
