thatvoodoochick's blog: "Mindless Ramblings Of Me"

What truly boggles my mind is how customer services seems to have gone out the windows these days. Granted, we have become a throw away society; making things so cheaply that it's more cost effective to buy a new item then repair it. Nonetheless, there are still some instances were you need it.

Example:

I recently got rid of T-Mobile! (Hooray!) I opted for Sprint because I did have them many years ago and the sound quality was always superb. I had left for minor issues that I assumed over the the course of time have been improved upon, i.e., at the time good luck connecting to the intenet. After reviewing many phones (both consumer and CNET), I opted for the HTC Evo Shift.

It's a pretty phone. LOL A bit pricy but after all the rebates, it dropped to what I felt was a reasonable price for the phone. However, I still had to pay a bit of a high bill that sent my credit card people into a jig and me into cardiac arrest. I'm sorry. I'm a cheap ass when it comes to me. LOL

Anyway, the people at the store were FABULOUS! We went the day before just to check out the phones. Even though the store was crowded, the rep took the time to answer all of our questions. Going back the next day, the experience was just a great. Ah! Customer service. NICE.

Got the phones up and running. Great crystal clear sound quality. AH! Even during the Blizzard of 2011, we never expereienced any dropped calls, calls that didn't go through - NOTHING! We were over the moon. Until a few days later. The secondary user's phone decided to go stupid. So, he called Tech Support and they suggested he take it to his nearest "repair" store to have it tested. Okay. He gets there and is told, "Well, we're a repair center, but you really should have just taken the phone back to where you purchased it from, but we'll take a look at it." Um, what? He told the guy, don't act like you're doing me a favor. You're a repair center, kind of your job. They tested the phone and it failed every point. Okay, no biggie. He got a defective phone. You can buy a Caddy and get a lemon. So, they give him a new phone and off he goes.

Meanwhile, I've noticed some odd things with mine. Granted, this is the first time I've ever had a smartphone, so it could be just me, but thinking the other phone was defective, I'm going to take mine in to be looked at in case the store we bought them from just happened to get a bad batch. No biggie. Call Tech Support, tell them what's going on, take phone to repair center.

I do and am met with the same, well, you should take it back to where you got it from. Okay, shit like that doesn't sit with me. I've done retail (will never do it again), as much as you might HATE your customer, you're at least polite. Hell, even at the law firm if I even thought of talking to a client like that, chances are I would be out of a job. So as sweetly as I could, I commented, "Well, if you don't want to be a repair center, maybe you should inform the corporate office so you won't be bothered with people like me." LOL Wow, suddenly it's let's check out the phone.

I tell them the issues I was having. The one guy just told him to give me a new phone, the one issue, tinny earpiece was a known issue. Hmm, really? That's odd. I didn't see that in ANY of the reviews. Okay, whatever. Gimme new phone. It's all good. Well after and hour and 15 minutes of this fool trying to get the new phone working and my contacts back, I was out the door. I did a test call to make sure it worked, it did and off to work I went.

At lunch I went to reset up my voice mail and holy hell I almost dropped the phone. The tinniness was so bad, it just hits that nerve in your ear that when it gets to a certain pitch caused you immense pain. Yeah, I had that. Thinking it was a bad connection I tried again. Nope. Okay, now I'm starting to get pissed. Playing around, great, the damn notifications aren't working again. (Another issue I had with the first phone.) So I called the store, explained the situation and they told me to come back down, it sounded like a faulty device.

Grr, back down after work and yeah. Now I'm getting attitude from hell. "Well, it's not a phone issue, it's a network issue." Okay, how the HELL is a bad earpiece a network issue? I told him I didn't see how a faulty earpiece was the network's fault. He told me and I quote, "Well, you're under the 30 days. Just cancel the contract if you don't like the service. We're not in the habit of just giving phones away to people." Okay, NOW I'm pissed. All politeness on my end has gone out the window.

First off, the notifications not coming through, yes, I'll buy it's a network issue. Crappy earpiece, no. Two, if necessary, I will cancel this contract but quite honestly, I would prefer not to since for the most part it's the PHONE that's the issue not the service. Three, I wouldn't be so flip about telling customers to leave because in cause you didn't realize, people like me coming in buying these phones, signing contracts, review your performance when the survey comes in, keeps you working. And four, I'm not trying to get something for nothing. I paid handsomely for the phone and as wild and wacky as it might seem, I expect it to work.

So, they go off to test my phone, of course find nothing wrong. Hands it back to me and was like, well deal with it or cancel and walked away. I got home and emailed the CEO. (The rep on the 800 number gave it to me. She said they like to hear from customers about their experiences to see where they can improve.) Well, by golly, he got an email from me which generated the typical, we'll contact you shortly message.

Frustrated as all hell over this, because now my phone is fucking losing it's mind. Oh yes, still no notifications coming in. NOW, it's just deletely the all of the home pages so I just have the wallpaper and nothing else. I call Tech Support yet again to see if they could help. Explain ALL of it to the woman and she was like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. The earpiece has poor sound quality and it's the network?" Yes, that's what I was told. She literally laughed and said, "NO, defective phone. Hello." I had to chuckle. When I told her what he said about cancelling the contract, she flipped. She's was like, "Sprint's not in the habit of telling it's customers to go away." So she suggested me NOT going back to that store. Yeah, no intentions there and I have reported the store. She gave me a trouble ticket number and told me to go back to the store I purchased it from. The ticket states I received a new device, was told it was a network issue, earpiece is defaulted. Repair or replace. She even said she would call me back on Monday (which will remain to be seen) and she said, and I quote, "If they so much as look at you funny, I want you to tell me because this is not the Sprint way." You got it toots! LOL

So as much as I really, really like this phone, I think I'm going to bypass getting another one since I've had two and it just doesn't seem to be working out for me. The other 2 4G models I had to look at were another HTC which is like their iPhone. As much as I would love to get that one, I think I'll stay away from it. Granted, it could just be that model, but at this point with only a little over 2 weeks to decide if I should keep them, why take the chance? So, I'm going with the Samsung Epic 4G. It was the one I had thought of getting but I thought it wasn't as sturdy. However, all of the "manufacture" reviews I've read rave about how sturdy it is and user reviews are pretty good for it too. So wish me luck. I think I'm gonna need it.