One of the most interesting things about how badly Rogers handled the introduction of the iPhone in Canada is how it was totally mauled from a public relations perspective.
While Rogers was assailed for its ridiculous data plans, the company essentially did nothing to respond. Only when the assault turned into a hailstorm did Rogers finally relent and offer a limited time 6GB plan for $30/month.
Clearly, Rogers has learned its lessons if a story in today’s Globe & Mail is any indication. Entitled “iPhone data usage underwhelms”, the story tells how Rogers has surprisingly discovered that 95% of iPhone users used less than 500MB of data during the first four weeks of usage.
While this may be a fact, it’s also a crafty PR spin because Rogers needs to sell the idea to consumers that since they may use less data than they expect, their data bills won’t be sky high.
This will make it easier for Rogers to kill its $30/6GB plan on Sept. 1. This plan will be replaced Oct. 1 by a $30 plan giving iPhone users 1GB of data. This is – surprise, surprise – significantly more than what 95% of iPhone users are using in data.
Now, that’s spin.
But – and here’s the big but – you’re paying $30 for one-sixth of the data now being offered by Rogers during its limited-time data offer.
If you don’t want the $30/1GB plan, Rogers has a $25 for 500MB plan.
It is also planning to cap data costs at $100/month to provide “the ultimate cost certainty”. Funny how they don’t call it an all-you-can-eat plan, probably because it would be three times more expensive than was AT&T offers in the U.S.
Looks like the Rogers PR machine has been hard at work.
Update: Alec Saunders has a post on how Rogers is charging Blackberry Enterprise customers significantly more than iPhone customers.
2 Comments
I just spent nearly three hours in a Rogers store yesterday enduring a truly Kafka-esque sales experience. I finally caved in and decided to replace my almost-dead Blackberry Pearl with the iPhone. The in-store system would not allow the sales rep to remove my BlackBerry data plan so I literally sat in the store for almost two hours on hold with Rogers waiting for them to pick up and make the switch. Apparently customers get through faster than if the sales reps call their dedicated support number.
So far the phone is great, and anecdotal evidence indicates Rogers has built a much better 3G network than AT&T, but they do everything possible to ruin the customer experience. There’s no point trying to upgrade your phone online since it quotes prices that are often double what you’ll qualify for in store, but they seem to offer no support to their retailers to get the product to customers efficiently.
Rule #1 when dealing with rogers: PHONE and make sure you talk to customer relations. Do this by saying “cancel” to the automated service.
As for the data plans… 1GB *IS* essentially unlimited data usage. The fact of the matter is that your battery will die LONG before you’ll start hitting any data caps. And if you’re in a place where you can plug in your phone, then you’ll 99% of the time have access to WiFi as well.
The only issue is for people that run a mobile business, and they should have gotten in on the promotional period!