BARCELONA, Spain—AT&T’s Glenn Lurie said that the carrier continues to support the “white glove” phone delivery service it launched in 2015 via partner Enjoy, and noted that such services likely will grow increasingly important as wireless carriers work to meet the needs of their customers.
"It's the customer's world and we just live in it,” noted Lurie, president and CEO of AT&T’s Mobility and Consumer Operations businesses.
Lurie explained that AT&T’s phone-delivery service is one mechanism the carrier can use to ensure that it’s meeting the needs of its customers.
"If I've had a certain device and this is just a newer version, do I really need to go touch it and feel it? Well, it's up to the customer. Maybe the customer says, 'I just want to know you have it at that store,' and they just need us to hold it for them and they'll come and complete the transaction,” he said here on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress trade show. “Maybe they want us to deliver the phone to them with a white glove treatment, either at their home or a Starbucks. We can do that. So it's about the customer."
Lurie said AT&T continues to see success with its phone-delivery service, which also helps customers set up and use their devices.
"So far it's gone well. The customer feedback is phenomenal,” Lurie said of AT&T’s Enjoy service. "If the customer wants it that day, we're going to need to find a way to deliver it to that customer. And that's exactly some of those ideas that we know we need to bring to the marketplace. Right now we're very happy with how it's going."
AT&T announced its deal with startup Enjoy, launched by former Apple retail chief Ron Johnson, in 2015 in New York and San Francisco, and added Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Miami the following year.
To be clear, AT&T isn’t the only carrier offering phone deliveries; Sprint launched its Direct 2 You service also in 2015.
Lurie explained that AT&T’s phone-delivery deal with Enjoy is just one of a number of AT&T’s efforts to reach its customers where and when they are, a strategy he called an “omnichannel view” of the operator’s subscribers. He said AT&T also offers retail support, customer call centers (including some that are overseas) as well as self-care services like AT&T’s customer service-management app. “I think we can continue to do it better,” Lurie said of AT&T’s customer service efforts, adding that “we need to do even more in the digital front.”