I have a problem with my iPhone, but I don't know who to ask for help. It's one of those nagging, inconsistent problems, like the funny rattle that appears in your car dashboard at odd times (but never when you try to prompt it at your dealership). After sending one e-mail, I can no longer send any others; my valid name and/or password are deemed incorrect.In the terms of branding, I'm having a bad brand experience. Yet, between Apple, AT&T, and GoDaddy (my e-mail host), there's nobody responsible for making it better.

I've asked customer service at all three companies, and had otherwise pleasant and helpful reps confirm that their parts of the deal work just fine. I've also trolled the forums for each company, and external user groups, only to find that there's no good answer for my question.

I've wondered aloud whether it's a ghost in the machine, only I have two friends with the same combination of technology and services, and they both have the same problem. We're all stuck in the no-man's land of infinite access and zero return. Our phones still don't work properly.

As a consumer, I don't really care that my phone functions thanks to the cooperation of different companies. It should just work, and there should be a single authority for help when it doesn't. As a marketer, I wonder if the companies have fully thought through what such technology collaborations do for each involved brand: If they're all dependent on each other to deliver a good customer experience, do they each suffer equally when one of them drops the ball?

And as more product/services offerings come to market, do there perhaps need to be better arrangements for multiple technology brands to ensure that they collectively deliver a single, satisfying brand experience?

A unified help resource for multiple-partner offerings (that linked and cross-referenced into a holistic, customer-based perspective) would be a nice start.

iPhone partners? Discuss.

Jonathan Salem Baskin writes the Dim Bulb blog and is the author of Branding Only Works On Cattle.