Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Warranty and after Sales Service - Personal Experience

I bought a  Samsung Galaxy Vibrant in Sept from Best Buy and the service is through Bell.  It was working fine except few times it froze. No big deal. But then it stopped working last night. I could not “ON “it or charge it.  Ok first call to Best Buy where I bought the phone. The rep asked whether purchased a replacement plan and I said “no” then he said you have to go to Bell for service.

Ok then went to a Bell store on my way to work and the sales rep said that I have to go to a Bell store with repair centre. Ok then went to a Bell store with repair center and the rep said they have to send it to Samsung and it will take 6 weeks. If I pay monthly $25.00 they will give a loaner phone. He said he is aware there are problems with the Samsung Galaxy Phones. So I asked why I have to pay $25 for loaner where as they are already aware the model has problems. He asked me to call the customer service.  Then I called the customer service and got a rude customer service person and she said it is our standard policy you have to pay  $25 for loaner phone. We will not waive the fee and it will take 3-6 weeks.  Then I called Samsung and the rep said they need long timebecause they have to ship the phone to the repair centre which is very far but he does not know the location of the repair center ( I am not sure how he knew it is far away). They can't provide loaner and I should check with Bell. 

So each company put the blame on teh other company but none did care about their service or  ulitmate customer.

I asked few of my coworkers and friends for their experience. One of my coworkers had a similar problem with a phone purchased at Costco (service through Bell) but Costco provided a loaner without any question. 
Another friend bought a smart phone from Rogers and it did not work and they tested it and replaced it immediately. All these days, I thought Rogers provides crappy service but seems Bell is worse. I do understand phones do break and they need to repair but Bell could at least give a basic loaner phone for its clients. 

I did not except them to repair the phone in 2 days But what I expected is to repair it 2 weeks or give a basic loaner phone for the time.

When you purchase goods and service check about after sales service.

Enhanced by Zemanta

2 comments:

johnphilip3333 said...

Thanks for sharing

maphew said...

What a rotten experience. I wish I could reassure you that it is also an uncommon experience. Unfortunately it's not, nor is it confined to the realm of tech gadgets, see http://www.cringely.com/2011/04/purgatory-at-37-degrees/ for a similar story involving a refrigerator. At least that (un)fortunate soul had a heavy weight blogger to raise the profile of the issue enough to get proper resolution. :(