Customer satisfaction has proven to be one of Apple’s strong points, as indicated by the American customer satisfaction Index (ACSI) this week. Unfortunately, there are still some customers who are far less than satisfied by the company.
An Alabama woman named Jessica Smith is one of those customers, and she intends to bring many more of them out into the light with her, by filing a class-action lawsuit against Apple.
The suit involves the iPhone 3G, and a 10-page document lists her complaints with the phone and its service. Complaints maintain that the phone finds a connection with AT&T’s 3G network less than a fourth of the time, the number of dropped calls is unusually high, and the service runs slowly. This is despite the fact that her hometown of Birmingham supposedly has great 3G coverage and Apple’s ads tout the device as “twice as fast for half the price.”
Apple did release an update on Tuesday, addressing connection issues, although according to Marin Perez of InformationWeek, the problems haven’t all been fixed. Many people are still finding issues, and might just be interested in that class action suit.
Technology enthusiasts are happy to just sit back and watch. “If nothing else, we might learn from the suit where exactly the phone’s problems lie, and that might be worth the ride, even if it takes a long time to get there,” writes Matt Buchanan at Gizmodo.
However, the average consumer, who, like Smith, rushed out to buy the phone, probably does not have such a nonchalant attitude. If more people come forward, Apple might have a hefty fee to pay. The negative publicity for the phone is not going to be too great for sales either.
