Background: I have recently had my iPhone replaced under an insurance claim, however it had a faulty battery.

I have been left feeling frustrated and let down by O2 (who have already made my life difficult in dealings with them in the past) trying to get it replaced.

This is the process I have been through to get it replaced:

1. Call to O2 to ask how to replace it – told to take it to store and it will take 4-5 days and I will get an replacement iPhone whilst I am there.
2. Take phone into O2 store only to be told it will take 7-14 days and I get a really crappy old Samsung handset as a replacement (Samsung handsets are fine, it’s just the replacement one I received is old enough not to have predictive text, a web browser, or email – hardly a suitable replacement for an iPhone).
3. I am told I will be called when the phone is back and kept up to date.
4. After 7 days I spend a whole day calling the store to find out about my phone, no answer.
5. I call O2 customer service who tell me they can’t find out anything about the handset as it was brought in the store.
6. I finally get through to O2 store and am told they don’t know anything.
7. After the weekend (yesterday) I call the O2 store again and ask for an update – I am told I will be called back.
8. O2 store guy calls back to say they have had my phone back for 3 days and tried to call me (not true as I don’t have any missed calls, voicemails and I chased them in the interim about said handset).
9. Go to store to pick up handset only to be told by inept store person that I need to bring passport, old phone etc.
10. The store manager tells him he is wrong and I get my phone back.

I don’t think that I have asked for anything particularly out of the ordinary, and a system where I could have tracked this query from start to finish with input and updates from O2 call center, O2 store, Apple Repair, and myself, would have cut down the amount of calls/communications and let me feeling informed and confident about the issue.

This is (as I understand it) a basic example of a VRM implementation – I could have setup the query, pushed them my phone/email to keep me updated, we could all have seen what everybody said and I could have kept track of the repair in a similar way to online delivery tracking.

A reasonable part of this could easily be implemented (excluding the contact details push) using exisiting technology (we’re trying to acheive something similar with our Resolve RM product), why don’t more companies do it?