Tim Cook is clearly following Steve Jobs’ tradition of responding to customers, and this time it was to help a customer with a locked AT&T phone, 9to5Mac reports. While AT&T were at first reluctant to unlock the device, the customer emailed Tim Cook and shortly afterwards was contacted by AT&T to unlock his phone, and later contacted by Tim Cook’s assistant to confirm AT&T had followed it through.

As 9to5Mac explains:

The reader was reassigned to Canada for work and decided he wanted to use his iPhone 3GS (which was on AT&T at the time, but has since finished its contract) on a Canadian carrier’s pay-as-you-go plan. AT&T refused to unlock the device, insisting only Apple could. Apple suggested the reader call AT&T again, because only the carrier could authorize the unlock. When he did, the only advice the reader received was to “Just jailbreak your phone.” We heard reports of many similar situations and both the carriers and Apple often give inconsistent information related to unlocking iPhones, which result in confusion among consumers. Frustrated, the reader sent an email to Cook asking him for help.

While the reader never received a personal response from Cook, he did receive a response from AT&T Partnership Operations that informed him it received his email from Cook requesting to unlock the iPhone. After AT&T confirmed the IMEI’s for the device, an AT&T representative told the reader that the carrier made an exception to unlock the iPhone. The reader was given instructions to tether his iPhone to iTunes to complete the unlock. According to the reader, he also received a call from Cook’s assistant to make sure AT&T followed through with the request.

I don’t know many CEOs who would do that or something similar. Great stuff.