Feb 05, 2018 09:07 PM
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We are all conditioned to think and believe that sophisticated products from multi-national companies are good! When we draw a comparison with domestic products or those from other countries(though not truly multinational in nature), it is natural to feel that multi-national products fare better. While this is not completely wrong, yet it is necessary to challenge our preconceptions in the light of our own life experiences. We can tell from our own experience that not all MNCs offer robust products or good after-sales customer service or both. Similar is the story with domestic products.
The essential lesson for all of us here is to judge each product and company on its own merits without preset notions. In this blog, we write about the horrible customer experience we received from HTC company. However, before we do that, let us take a walk on quality of products and customer service vis-a-vis domestic and MNC brands.
Let us give a few examples. Take the case of Samsung LED SMART TVs. We were originally a loyal customer of Samsung - however, it was only later that we discovered it as one of the worst companies when it comes to quality of its products and customer service. You can read our earlier review here. On the contrary, RE Connect TVs from Reliance turned out well. They came with a 2 year warranty. To be honest, when we experienced certain issues with the TV after 1 year of usage and were frustrated, Reliance went out of its way to provide exemplary customer service. It allowed us to return the TVs for a full refund.
Another case in point is TP Link Routers. One would think that TP Link being a Chinese company, the products would be cheap in quality and their customer service would be equally worse. We were in for a thorough surprise. When the router we purchased from them was found to be defective, TP Link went the extra mile and replaced it with an advanced router that was priced in the market 3 times the cost of the router we returned. Further, it was not just about the price - it had astounding features! Of course, you will agree with us that features and pricing are useless if the product does not perform. We were in for a surprise there too. It has been around a year that they provided the replacement router. It has not had any complaints whatsoever and has performed brilliantly.
How many companies whether domestic or international would do that? We are sure that the numbers can be counted on your fingers. The good part is that companies like TP Link and Reliance though sometimes beset with quality issues, still made the effort to turnaround the customer experience positively! We must note here that getting the above 2 complaints fixed from Reliance and TP Link was not a cake walk but when we reached out to the Senior Management, they responded positively and quickly. It took us time, effort and several levels of frustration but at the end, it was more than worth the wait!
Now returning to the HTC brand mobile phones - we purchased one of their flagship smart phones, the HTC Desire 820 online from one of the online retailers. It was expensive but we thought it was worth it given its advanced features. Also, we are not fancy about switching our mobile phones every now and then. We typically use a mobile phone for at least 5 years unless it becomes completely redundant and obsolete as in "no longer usable". Hence, the money was spent accordingly with that timeline in mind.
Unfortunately, the smart phone developed defects within 1 year of warranty. Initially, the phone performed well and we simply loved it and were happy with our decision. However, the troubles began later. The model started exhibiting serious battery issues. The performance of the phone slid downwards and became laggardly. There were also severe memory issues relating to both ROM and RAM whereby the memory showed as full and that impacted performance of the phone further. We did factory reset, thorough cleansing of the phone, minimum apps, et al but to absolutely no avail. The phone even began shutting down abruptly.
To put the record straight, we do not use the phone for any games and our calls are usually short calls and not many in a day, by any stretch of imagination. We are not a fan of multitude of apps either and use only the absolute minimum required. Camera is used functionally as we are not the selfie type. Most of the time, we keep several functions of the phone off as they tend to guzzle the battery such as Wireless(during sleep / night time), Location, GPS, Auto Rotate, Low Brightness Levels, Bluetooth, Mobile Data, Hot Spot, HTC Connect and Flash Light. We keep the phone in battery saver mode too. Despite all this, the battery discharges too fast and gets consumed in matter of hours.
We reported the issue to their customer service team and were in for a shock. Their customer service team was our worst nightmare. They do not even have a customer escalation matrix. Their team simply said they can't provide service free of cost and it is chargeable. We asked them the rationale since it was still in warranty. They stated that the warranty from retailer does not matter and they calculate it from the point of time they manufactured the device. This was absolutely weird. We got in to numerous telephonic conversations but they were not paying off. Finally, when we persisted, we felt we saw some light at the end of the tunnel. One of their managers asked for the invoice which was duly provided. He agreed that the phone was within warranty period per the invoice. He said he would revert once he checks with his technical team. When he did revert, it was the same old story again.
As per his update, the phone had been used before we purchased it as per their records. Hence, they could not provide as it lapsed. We debated that simply can not be the case as the phone was received at our end with company seal on it but HTC did not waver and simply blocked our emails and calls. When we used a different email id and telephone number and kept following-up, they finally relented stating that they would provide service for the phone at no cost and provide a standby phone in the interim. We thanked our stars and requested the procedure and time slot to obtain standby phone and surrender the defective handset at their service centre.
The nightmare then continued once again where the earlier Manager had left the organisation and their so called service manager went back on their commitment. We are now back to square One wherein on account of their own delay recorded on email, the warranty of the phone as per invoice has lapsed but due to no fault of ours. We have written to the email addresses of Head of HTC Ms. Cher Wang and Faisal Siddiqui, India Head of HTC but there is no response from their end either. Frankly, we do not expect any positive update on this complaint in the near future. However, we are posting our experience so that others can learn from it.
Always remember to research the product you are buying - the quality of the product and customer service provided by the company. The internet provides us ample opportunity to research anything. Use that before making a buy decision. If your research indicates something not so great, then do not buy. If you must, then keep your costs extremely low, not to mention your expectations.
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