AT&T iPhone activation contractor: "Extremely pleased" with results
Synchronoss, the New Jersey-based company that has a contract with AT&T to handle iPhone activations, says it is "extremely pleased" with the way the iPhone activations went.
In an earlier post I described how I spent innumerable hours on hold over the weekend trying to get AT&T to actually activate the iPhone I bought on Friday evening. They finally did on Sunday, after 39 hours elapsed.
SF residents queue up on Friday to buy an iPhone
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/mccullagh.org)That brings us to Synchronoss, which has a contract with AT&T to handle the activation.
Publicly traded Synchronoss, oddly, hasn't been very public about its iPhone involvement. One of the few articles about its services was one last week in Investor's Business Daily, which says: "Its software takes care of the process from the time the customer has made the decision to buy to when the transaction is processed and the account is activated on the network."
That sounds like a pretty key ingredient in the activation mix. Also, the e-mail updates that iPhone customers received said AT&T in the "From:" line but were actually, as the headers reveal, sent by Synchronoss.
So I sent e-mail to Synchronoss CEO Steve Waldis on Sunday asking him what happened (I was hardly the only one with problems).
Domenick Cilea from Springboard Public Relations replied the same day. He sent me a bullet point list in response:
• "This weekend set a new bar for the communications space and introduced an activation approach that shifted the paradigm to activate phones in the comfort of a customer's home or office."
• "The OVERWHELMING majority of the people who activated the iPhone had a fast and seamless experience and were 'breezing' through it in minutes."
• "The amount of exceptions that were received, a normal activity in any activation, was much smaller than expected. Some of these processes require other third parties."
• "Many of these exceptions have already been processed and resolved."
• "Synchronoss is extremely pleased with the way its software performed. It exceeded expectations."
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
pleased. I've been waiting 58 hours to get the iBrick to activate.
I'm extremely pissed!!!
activations that took longer than 5 minutes.
Inc., which provides software and services that manage
customer service for businesses, sold 10,250 shares of common
stock under a prearranged trading plan, according to a
Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
In three Form 4s filed with the SEC Monday, Stephen G. Waldis
reported he sold the shares Thursday for $27.71 to $28.78
apiece.
The stock sale was conducted under a prearranged 10b5-1
trading plan which allows a company insider to set up a program
in advance for such transactions and proceed with them even if
he or she comes into possession of material nonpublic
information.
Insiders file Form 4s with the SEC to report transactions in their
companies' shares. Open market purchases and sales must be
reported within two business days of the transaction.
Synchronoss is based in Bridgewater, N.J.
______
Questions or comments about this story should be directed to
AP Financial News at 212-621-7190
Okay, I'll agree with this. It is a great concept to have a phone "on the rack" at the retailer, take it home, personalize it, and get it working all by yourself. Kudos to the design team.
? "The OVERWHELMING majority of the people who activated the iPhone had a fast and seamless experience and were 'breezing' through it in minutes."
I'd be very interested in what the term "overwhelming majority" means. Let's take it like this: A majority is over 50%. So, let's assume that some number over 2/3 have had no problem.
? "The amount of exceptions that were received, a normal activity in any activation, was much smaller than expected. Some of these processes require other third parties."
Okay, this is the key statement. Taking the "2/3" number from above, let's assume they expected 50% of the people to have problems (surely, not what they actually calculated, but bear with me). Given that, 2/3 going through is "smaller than expected" exceptions. Now, here's my problem: if AT&T and this company expected a certain number of exceptions, and IF that number was truly "smaller than expected", then why are the activation support folks (1) clueless about the process of which they are a part, and (2) completely unable to cope with the volume of exceptions?
No matter how you slice this, AT&T really messed up big time. Also, this is not the proper way to do failure analysis. Calculating the impact of failure is more like this:
number of failures * cost/impact of each failure
Considering how glaring the failures of the activation process are, why can't these companies just ADMIT THEY MESSED UP and let us all know HOW THEY ARE GOING TO FIX IT/MAKE UP FOR IT? I thought this was PR-101???
? "Synchronoss is extremely pleased with the way its software performed. It exceeded expectations."
I'm so happy for your software, Synchronoss. Did you know it was interacting with actual people who wasted actual time when your software FAILED THEM?
But Syncrhonoss isn't going to ramp up their processing capacity for a one-weekend spike. So, they likely expected a percentage failure and agreed with att/apple to live with it in the short term. A month from now, when levels are way down, registration will probably be flawless.
Still feel for those whose excitement turned to frustration, though. One of the reasons to wait with a product like this till the kinks get worked out.
You do realize that most people only post/complain when
things go wrong. How many people do you think had a great
experience, without any problem and don't say anything??
Let me guess...you waited in line for hours and hours, and were
upset that you didn't get activated right away. Sure, that would
make me angry to, but come on, be fair. How many things
happen totally seamlessly that you don't even realize or thank
the people that make it happen.
Be realistic.
Only 2 years ago you couldn't port your number, and it took
hours and a paper application form to get your phone working,
which sometimes took days.
southern most orifice?
Analysts were estimating 2% of iPhone buyers having
authentication errors or delays. That's pretty good in my
opinion. Of course the one's having the problems are screaming
at the top of their lungs.
It looks like you're just an iPhone basher looking for something,
anything, to complain about.
how pleased they are about how it went?!!! ***!!!! ***!???!
No
shame, no sense ... this feels just like those smug H1B defrauding
lawyers who stated "the aren't breaking any laws".
***?
!
LOL ... I can't stop thinking "***!!!!!?""
main reason activations were, and are still being held up.
Probably archaic methods are being employed.
But COME ON,
these guys should not have commented at ALL. Not with
thousands out of service.
They still should have
kept their mouths shut. Unless they felt they were about the
receive all of the blame, in which case I could understand.
This is starting to get interesting.
- New paradigm?
- by mypalmike July 2, 2007 12:22 PM PDT
- "shifted the paradigm to activate phones in the comfort of a customer's home or office"
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(14 Comments)Hasn't this been a common approach since the dawn of time? I know I did this with my first Sprint cell phone about 6 years ago.