AT&T Wants You To Help Them Improve Their Network By Marking The Spot
AT&T (NYSE: T) has launched a new iPhone application that let’s you provide specific feedback about network coverage. Called AT&T Mark the Spot, the application allows you to capture the GPS coordinates when a call fails, there’s no coverage, there’s no data service, or there’s poor voice quality. After your complaint is submitted, AT&T will send you an SMS, acknowledging that the event happened.
Already, the app has received 23 comments. Most give it a lot of stars, but then use the opportunity as a forum to show their disgust. One commenter writes: “It’s sad when customers of such a large company have to do the “dirty work”/field study!” Others hope that AT&T really does take the feedback to heart and improves service, although many are doubtful, asking “Is this just a PR stunt?” Good thing the app is free.
What’s a bit disturbing is that by launching the app, AT&T is admitting that it really has no idea where the networks’ holes are. That sounds incorrect. AT&T should know exactly where calls drop and where there’s no coverage at all. If AT&T doesn’t know, the iPhone app sounds like the modern version of stories I heard about the very early cellular days. Whether it was lore or not, execs told me that employees would conduct drive tests, and whenever a call dropped, they’d throw a bag of flour out the window to mark the spot.
why not let a real 3G network take on the iPhone. Sprint has maps and apps. It IS the MOST RELIABLE 3G network.
The app reminds me of the customer experience apps on my PC or Mac that invite me to share a log file with MSFT or Apple after an application crash. AT&T needs the feedback, and as a user I appreciate the opportunity to improve their service with useful data. But I find that when I have dropped a call or have no bars, though I may be angry enough to want to vent through this app, the top priority I have is to reconnect the call and continue the conversation, or make the call as soon as there are enough bars. My attention at that point is on completing the task. It’s a behavior that I notice on my PC as well. If I am in the middle of a presentation, and PowerPoint crashes, I immediately want to see what was autosaved, not send an email to MSFT, and that original task is top of mind.
In a world where apps aren’t running in the background monitoring my service level, a silo’d reporting app is not as convenient for the user. Imagine a use case where the call is dropped, and the iPhone screen doesn’t just say “call failed” and “call back”. Today, I leave that screen, open the AT&T app, report through a series of steps what my problem was and how frequently I experience it, and then go back to my call log to finish the call.