AT&T to offer iPhone… unless you’re already a customer
I’m as excited as the next guy about the iPhone coming out at the end of this month. In preparation I made a call to AT&T to see what packages they’re currently offering because I’ll need to switch carriers. I’ve been a customer of their DSL and landline services for two years now and any time I’ve needed to call them, they’ve always pushed adding their wireless to my existing package for a special rate. Until I actually want to add it.
The woman who helped me was extremely friendly and went out of her way to find out everything she could. She mentioned that with their promotions they don’t always get “the best phones”. After further investigation it looks like I’ll have to actually get the iPhone from Cingular or AT&T Wireless, (or whatever it is they want to call themselves depending on the situation) and sign up for a separate wireless package instead of packaging it together with my landline and DSL, which they’ve offered countless times before.
This whole situation makes sense from one perspective… those looking for the latest technology usually don’t care about price so they’ll buy regardless. Does it make existing customers want to tell anyone they know about what a great company AT&T is, considering they’re not receiving any benefits for being an existing customer?
In the grand scheme of things I’m not going to be losing any significant amount of money by getting or not getting “a deal”. Which on the other side of the coin means the same thing: it’s really not going to cost a company that much to make an existing customer feel like they’re going that extra mile for them.
Short term: AT&T makes more money from people like me.
Long term: I’m outta there the first chance I get - another carrier offers the iPhone and/or I actual have a choice for my DSL.