Dear Katie, EE must have a contract with Google to state that they would give you 'at least' x number of handsets on the 1st of November, and I would be astounded were there not some sort of penalty clause in the contract for damage to your reputation and customer retention if the given number of units were not delivered?
Assuming you made an initial order of, say, 10,000 handsets and Google/Foxconn agreed to supply this number, why would you keep taking pre-orders for more handsets than Google et al had agreed to supply? I've not been given a good reason (or any reason, actually) as to why EE have been hit so much harder than all the other networks? Vodafone, O2, Three etc have all had some delays, but I ordered my phone in October and received and 'email update' today to tell me that I was still 'awaiting a delivery date'. Carphone Wearhouse have my headset in stock on your network, with next day delivery if I order before 9.00pm!
I also had to place three orders for my phone. The first one was the wrong colour (I ordered a black 64GB XL) and was told I was going to get a white one, that order was cancelled whe I spotted it on the email, and I had to place another order. This time they got the colour right but ordered the wrong size, (one of your ops staff spotted that and queried it with me on a call a few days later, to their credit) so that order was cancelled, and a third order was put in, this time for a Black XL 128GB as a ‘goodwill gesture’ - which, while I'm grateful for, I didn't ask for (this was now well past the official launch date).
I’ve paid a fee for each handset ordered, and been told that I will be refunded the fees for the two erroneous transactions (that’s yet to happen) and was also told that the phones were going to be handed out on a ‘First come, first served’ basis, and other than someone putting a note on my account (does your system scan for notes on accounts when checking for delivery dates?) no one has been able to tell me that my phone will be delivered, honouring the initial order date which was on or about (+/- 24hrs) the 15th of October?
I tried to speak to someone on the FB chat page, but got a reply telling me that “EE understands how exciting it is for me to get my hands on my shiny new phone, and set it up to enjoy the features of Britain’s fastest 4G network”. I’m 39 years old, and self-employed. I need my phone to run my business, not to take to school and show it off to the other kids.
Could you please ask someone to ‘mange’ this order, and given that it’s now 9 days past due date, has someone thought to ring Google to ask WHY this has been such a mess? It’s much easier to manage people’s expectations when there is a clear, coherent, cogent statement telling people what’s going on, rather than all the gossip about product recalls, huge numbers of defective handsets etc. All we’re getting at the minute is stone faced silence and both EE and Google (who I’ve also been in touch with) who have closed ranks and either said ‘Production faults’, ‘High demand’ or ‘We don’t know’
I appreciate that this is absolutely not your fault, and I HATE moaning to Ops teams via any medium because of that, but as we plebs don’t get to speak to the management (we’re clearly just not important enough) perhaps you’d be kind enough to ask them to put out a statement and perhaps even an apology – if it’s not too much trouble for them?? After lunch, obviously, wouldn’t want to put them out!
