Sep
28
The battle of Apple’s and Orange’s
Filed Under Mobile
Today Orange announced that it had broken O2’s exclusive deal to sell the iPhone in the UK. While O2 have known this was coming for a long time, and have built a very solid association with the Apple brand over the 2 years of its preferential contract, this could not have come at a worse time. Why…?
Over the last few months - and more intensely over the last few weeks - O2’s data network has come in for some serious criticism on the blogosphere, especially from iPhone users. The moaning can be summed up as “We have the world’s greatest mobile data device; on the UK’s worst 3G data network!”. My own anecdotal evidence and Ofcom’s data coverage maps [667Kb PDF] back this up. Have a look, Orange’s coverage is much better.
When this gets out into the mainstream press, together with some of the reports of system ‘meltdowns’, it could drive much of O2’s more informed business to Orange.
What have O2 got up their sleeve to fight back? Well, being a long term user of O2 and having worked as a consultant with them for a while (and therefore seen ‘inside the machine’) I can vouch for their truly exceptional levels of award winning customer service and genuine care. I know it’s not perfect but compared to the competition it is still way ahead. This is partly due to the decision early on to keep call centres based in the UK and not follow the outsource/offshore lemmings over the cliff to the frustrating service and language difficulties many experience using these facilities.
So what will hold the most value for the next tranche of iPhone buyers - not necessarily the early adopters this time? Exceptional customer service or superior coverage and network stability? I would like both, but being a geek would chose the better network every time. What about you?
Update 29/09/09: Now Vodafone are in emergency talks with Apple and have just announced that it too will sell iPhones - but not till next year after the crucial Christmas period.
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