That Telefonica’s O2 have made a Heathrow Terminal 5 hash of the 3G iPhone launch in the UK is not news. Naturally the media, with their consumerist outlook, are having a field day.

The failure to anticipate demand with the resulting lack of stock may have been no failure at all, but possibly intentional – it generates great ‘must have’ media coverage.

But the systems failures, both hardware related and the ‘softer’ end of customer service, bear all the hallmarks of a mediocrity inspired cock-up.

However, unlike their friends in the media, those with a bit of real-life business experience may well be saying ‘but there for the grace of God go I’. Large corporate roll outs like this frequently do trip over themselves and it is not always as easy to predict the bottlenecks as a first class honours degree in hindsight might suggest.

That said, it is rarely a good idea to lie to customers. Again, this sort of thing tends to have the media up in arms but those of us with that real-life experience, while not necessarily condoning O2’s actions, can perhaps understand the temptations to cover-up and try and avoid the further trouble that full and frank honesty might induce.

Whatever your view, there are three types of lie, all experienced within a 24-hour period by your correspondent trying to track down his new O2 iPhone, that should be avoided at all costs:

1   Don’t lie about things that your customer knows are obvious lies. For example, when he has called the Business Customer Services number, don’t try to pretend it is the Retail Customer Services number just so you can get rid of the call. And, don’t tell your customer he can only communicate to you by email and then give him an email address you know is not monitored. You will, undoubtedly, be found out so what have you to gain?

2   Don’t blatantly and gratuitously violate your complaints procedure that you publish on your website.

3   Don’t make pompous corporate value statements that look like the greatest work of fiction as soon as they’re put to the test.

And finally, a couple of tips:

1   All directors should spend a few days each year on the shop floor. O2 will no doubt spend millions advertising this year in an effort to persuade us to use them. Much of this is wasted, as it is with many organisations, when the customer experience calamitously fails to match the expectations the advertising has created. Had the CEO of O2 spent just ten minutes manning the customer services phones he’d know the advertising expenditure would be far more profitably deployed in fixing his constipated and dysfunctional company.

Directors quickly get out of touch – the troops on the ground often know what’s wrong and how it can be fixed quickly and easily. The ranks of mediocre middle managers, on the other hand, need to cover up their ineptitude so lie to the directors about how things are really going. The only effective remedy is to spend time with the troops doing what they do every day.

2   If you’re a telephone company, try to understand how ridiculous you look to the rest of the world if you won’t accept complaints by phone!

O2 were invited to respond to this post but declined to do so.