Yesterday, my iPhone stopped working. No warning, it just stopped receiving calls. I could still make calls, but not receive any.
After 2+ hours on the phone with both AT&T and Apple customer support, I got fed up, and I posted a YouTube video of my phone not working (see screenshot at left).
I also used www.Jigsaw.com (of which I am a member) to find a few VP-level AT&T employees, and I sent them this email:
Patty, Erika,
I'm sure you're both very busy. I hope you have a minute to handle a customer issue.
I was hoping there was someone within AT&T wireless' executive support I could speak to about a big problem with my AT&T iPhone.
I posted a YouTube video explaining the problem (my phone often doesn't ring when people call me):
And the most amazing thing happened. By this morning I had received a phone VM from the Virginia area regional customer service manager and the email below:
"Daniel Ruben Odio-Paez, We have received notification of an issue with a wireless account. Unfortunately, we did not receive the wireless number or account number with the issue. We will need this information in order for us to better assist you. Thank You, Kim Kirtley Office of the President NE Region"
It just goes to show you how aware even big companies are of the power of YouTube. The video had only gotten 23 views but it still garnered a very immediate response.
Kim and the Virginia VP rep were both very helpful in getting my issue resolved, so I took the video down (I'm not trying to be mean, after all). I still can't fully recommend the iPhone because it's been so buggy, but at least now I have VP-level contacts I can call when I have my next problem.
Daniel Odio gives tips and tricks for entrepreneurs!
Click to listen to "Episode 65: Interview Part 1" and click to listen to "Episode 66: Interview Part 2"
Jim Hopkinson, Wired.com's Marketing Guy and creator ofThe Hopkinson Report, recently interviewed me for his Hopkinson Report podcast. Here's a Tweet of Jim's about the Podcast, and another one about my social media hardware bag and another on my blog posting about how to hire people effectively.
Here is a transcript of the Podcasts
Here's an old post from 2011-11-21 I thought I'd save from Google+. It is just two years old and already my G+ history has forgotten it--thankfully Google's normal search could find it.
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George and I got some great footage of the Skritter iOS app in action yesterday for our teaser video. I Skrittered on buses, bridges, balconies, and a pillowcase. It's a good thing we finished shooting, because last night I flushed my month-old iPhone 4S down the toilet. Siri must have finally had enough of me asking her to tell me a story, or what's the inverse cosine of the arctangent of the square root of x from -1 to 1, or to remind me thirty times of my meeting with George in one minute. She just dove out of my loose 唐装 pocket at the moment of peak flush velocity. Slurp! It was a beautiful performance which my clutching hands could not follow.
So after calmly announcing to my boardgamemates that I'd just lost $600, sticking my arm up there, and being advised that "it's gone, man", I finished the game, eventually being punched out by an aging professor despite being invisible and having the revolver. Then I went straightaway to tell the internet about the hilarious loss. Just for fun, I decide to check iCloud's Find My iPhone feature. Well, what's this? Located 1 minute ago and still in the house? The phone clings to the plumbing, still alive! Quick, tell it to play a sound and display a message: "I'm drowning!"
Listening to the phone's desperate chimes for help, I located it to the back bend of the toilet trap and enlisted the small-wristed girls in the house to go toilet noodling. "You probably won't get your hand stuck in there. No, it's not dirty at all. It could be just a little further, so reach harder. Yeah, but your wrist is smaller than hers." My exploitative exhortations came to naught.
