A short while ago, I had the pleasure of whining about my jacked up phone. As far as I was able to tell, it was a hardware failure completely independent of my usage. I love my Android devices, and generally appreciate HTC‘s workmanship (up to this device), and I tend to stick with what works until something completely blows my current setup away.
My initial call to HTC customer service about my HTC EVO 4G LTE left me less than pleased. The device was out of warranty, and there was a significant cost (to me, at least) to repair. Not cool in my estimation, as I noted before, I literally treat my devices like gold. I felt that a year and a half is an insufficient time for a device to fail.
In any case, I reached out to an HTC executive, who was kind enough to call me back on the same day. Initially, I was not calling so much to change his mind, but to discuss HTC’s product quality. He took a look at the issue and had one of his direct reports arrange for me to get a new replacement device. A new one, at that.
I was quite pleased with how it turned out; truth be told, the mobile space is a tight one; rather than pay a couple hundreds to get the phone fixed, I’d probably would have rather gone for the newly released Nexus 5. It’s nice to see a company bend over backwards to keep a li’l old customer like me satisfied.
It took me very little time to make the new device truly mine… rooted, s-off and unlocked. I actually flashed a new ROM, but cosmetically, it’s the same as the old one. I had to send the old one in. It looked lonely and naked without the case as I bid it farewell in the prepaid box HTC was also kind enough to send.
Now I can get back to playing Ingress, again.
All in all, it was a blessing. I got more than I deserved, and another reason to give HTC devices first dibs when I make device decisions.
Have you had this good of an experience with customer service before?
Kelley Langkamp says
I had almost the exact same situation with my Keurig coffee maker a couple years ago. My coffee maker died 11 months into the 12 month warranty. Being a good techie, I used their web support rather than the phone. I submitted everything they asked for and was told my new coffee maker was in the mail. Weeks pass and no coffee maker. Follow up email…no respone. I called and they said the order for the replacement never got finished processing. I was less than happy but the person on the other end of the phone was extremely polite and quick about getting it taken care of.
I found an email address of one of the Keurig VPs on the interwebs and send them an email letting them know that their web support was not even close to the same level of service you get on the phone. I didn’t mean it as a complaint, more just a heads up. My problem was on it’s way to being solved so I was OK. It happened to be about December 21. I sent the email late at night. I mentioned in my email that because the web support was so bad, I was facing Christmas morning with 2 small children and no coffee! *shudder*
The next morning (Dec 22) before I had even gotten out of bed, my phone rang. It was one of the higher ups in Customer Service at Keurig. My email had been passed along to him. He got some details of what happened so he could follow up on it. He then sent me 4 free boxes of K-cups and made sure my coffee maker was shipped overnight so I would have it in time for Christmas morning!
Tre Lawrence says
Oh wow… that is an awesome testimonial!
Even though consumers are supposed to have all this “power” in a tight economy, I am still pleasantly shocked when I receive good customer service.