How Celcom could improve on the BlackBerry Torch sale

We were at the Celcom BlackBerry Torch fire sale to get ourselves a BlackBerry Torch for review last Friday. As it turns out, when we reached Pavilion, our chances looked pretty good so we lined up from 10am. In the end, we manage to get a Torch from Celcom for RM488.

That’s a pretty damn good price even if you take into account the additional RM300 you have to pay upfront and the RM500 early termination fee if you wanted to get out of the 12 months contract and sell of the phone.

This is not the first time Celcom employed the fire sale tactic to lure customers into signing up with them. Earlier this month, it offered the Nokia C3 at a very low RM99. It would seem that RM8 for a much higher end BlackBerry Torch is a steal, especially if you’re a BB fan.

But how much are you willing to sacrifice to get a high end phone at a really cheap price?

Our stand is…so long a we’re paying customers, customer service shouldn’t take a back seat no matter how cheap you’re offering your product for.

And here are some of our observations on how the BlackBerry Torch sale could have been better organised by Celcom. One would think that Celcom would have learned some valuable lessons during the Nokia C3 sale and made improvements at the BB Torch sale. Based on our experience on that day, not much has changed and we feel that Celcom could improve on so many aspects of the event.

The event was held outdoors in the middle of the afternoon with only one tent providing shelter. Partitions were setup for people to stand in line outside of the tent. Anticipating long lines and a huge crowd in Malaysian whether, Celcom could at least have two tents or ample covering to help ease the toll the heat is taking on customers. Better yet, they could have moved the whole event indoors making it easier for everyone.

We understand a long line outdoors are good for photo opportunities for Celcom but they could have gotten the same impact indoors with some good buzz building activities prior to that.

We were at the Maxis iPhone 4 launch where we lined up to get an iPhone 4 and we felt that Maxis handled the mass registration thing much better than Celcom. The Maxis event was held indoors and there was ample waiting room for customers once they’ve gotten their queue number. We don’t mind waiting in line for long periods of time for a good deal but being indoors with AC made it much better. So we hope the next crazy sale from Celcom will be held indoors.

At the Maxis event, after you’ve made your iPhone 4 purchase, there’s a accessories kiosk where you get purchase accessories to pimp up your iPhone 4. There’s no such thing at the Celcom event which is a waste as it would be convenient for us to be able to purchase essentials like screen protector and a nice sleeve for the phone.

Then it rained. Heavily. The rain gave some respite to the blazing heat on that day but it brought with it a whole set of problems. Although during the time of the rain, we were already lined up inside the lone tent, there was still at least 100 people lining up outside and completely exposed to the rain. The queue quickly dispersed and some who are adamant to get a good deal on the Torch rushed into the lone tent for shelter and that’s when things started to get messy as there were some opportunists who tried to jump the line to get a better price for the phone.

In addition to that, the heavy rain caused power outages, the power outages in turn cause the WiFi connectivity to crash which in turn slowed down the registration process tremendously. We were number 53 and got our BB Torch close to 7pm. While we can understand that the sale of the device itself officially starts at 3pm, we don’t understand why Celcom can’t start the registration and verification process earlier.

The registration and selection of new lines take the longest time compared to actually purchasing the device itself so as the line continue building up towards the 3pm sale time, Celcom could have registered customers by batches and give them a number to collect the device. This would save everyone a bucket load of time simply waiting for things to happen at 3pm.

After surviving the heat, the rain and the crowded conditions, those who have already sorted out their paperwork had to wait for the device. We found out that the BlackBerry Torches that over 200 people were lining over 12 hours for have yet to arrive, so more waiting was ahead for quite a number of people. We observed that, as sales of the device officially started at 3pm, the device itself actually arrived way pass 5pm. To us, this is just poor logistics.

As a testament to how slow things were progressing, there were people still waiting to get their BlackBerry Torch after 10pm, a full 7 hours after the sale officially started.

We’ve uploaded some videos of our experience at the Celcom BB Torch sale and we sincerely hope that the Celcom event and marketing people take heed so that can make better events in the future.

Don’t get us wrong Celcom, having all these sales offering top notch devices at ridiculously low prices is good for the consumers. We LOVE it and we hope other telcos doing the same thing but please put some thought into the logistics of the whole thing so that it is a pleasant and comfortable experience for everyone.

On the other hand, once we were at the counter to register our line, the Celcom staff were very helpful and courteous, though we would prefer that they know more about the services. Some of the Celcom staff we spoke to didn’t offer convincing answers when we wanted to find out more about the plans. Also, Celcom allowed 15 minute toilet breaks for those who were standing in line but again, this was poorly manage as we observe a large number of customers leaving the line for more than 15 minutes at a time.

Looking forward to more crazy sales from the boys in blue.