Post by Uk Android Centre on Oct 9, 2011 11:29:15 GMT 1
HTC is the new kid on the block among mobile phone companies and an apparent runaway success. They sold over 20 million handsets last year and are increasingly popular with the younger market, due to their slick design, variety of Apps and the fact they're a bit cheaper than some other brands of smartphone.
'Quietly brilliant' is their tagline. Yet, when it comes to customer service Watchdog's heard quite the opposite. Newsround's Ricky Boleto investigates.
Julie Holmes says her experience with HTC has put her off the company for good. She bought an HTC Desire in July 2010 but after just a few months started having problems - it started switching itself off and wouldn't make calls - so she sent it back to HTC for a repair. She didn't hear anything for a month so decided to chase them up. She then received her handset in the post but it was missing a battery and the back was covered in biscuit crumbs.
Julie was then promised a new battery but this never materialised. After several weeks of using an old handset, she got so fed up she bought herself a new battery, only to discover that the original problem hadn't been fixed and the phone still wouldn't work properly. Julie sent the phone back again and after another month of waiting, was forced to chase the repair. This time, HTC eventually came clean and admitted the phone was lost. Julie was sent a refurbished phone as a replacement but is still waiting for the headphones to go with it.
Julie's not alone. Watchdog has received over a hundred complaints about HTC's customer service this year alone. Rob Meiklejohn and James Kenyon are among them.
Rob's HTC Hero developed a problem with its speaker and so he sent it in for a repair in March. But when it was returned to him, it was damaged around the corners. Since then, Rob says he sent his phone in twice for repairs to the cosmetic damage. Both times HTC kept the phone for around 3 weeks and then just sent it back to him, still damaged, without any sign of work having been done. Another frustrated customer, Rob's also been put off using HTC products again.
James' HTC headache saw him send back his phone 4 times, so he's been without a phone for over 2 months. He says HTC sent him back a different phone when he was expecting his own to be repaired and then, after agreeing to send him a replacement, they sent him back his own phone but with all the data wiped from it. Without a courtesy phone during this time or an apology from HTC, James is not impressed. 'They just keep cocking up', he says.
William Oakley got so frustrated with HTC that he decided to vent his frustrations in public - he went on the HTC UK Facebook page and expressed his annoyance. He'd been offered a warranty repair to his phone so sent it back and then it went missing for over a month. HTC claimed they'd sent it back to him and later claimed the courier had lost it. Finally they said they wouldn't be repairing it under warranty and that he'd have to pay for the repair. William's Facebook tactic worked in his favour and he was contacted shortly afterwards by a HTC representative. However, for William, this was too little too late.
William's not alone - plenty of customers have expressed similar feelings on Facebook and of course, to Watchdog. We've heard of handsets that don't get fixed, handsets being returned damaged and handsets that don't come back at all.
HTC might claim to be one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile world but, judging by all the complaints, maybe they're growing a bit too fast?
HTC Statement:
As a company, our key focus is ensuring that our customers have the best possible experience when dealing with HTC. Unfortunately earlier this year, we experienced some issues with one of our repair centres which resulted in lower than expected customer service standards. We are sincerely sorry that we disappointed some of our customers and are fully committed to resolving any outstanding issues swiftly.
HTC has 44 repair centres across Europe, including four in the UK. Between March and May 2011, we transitioned one of our UK centres to a new partner to provide extended capacity and better service for our customers. Unfortunately, the move was not as smooth as we'd planned and this led to a backlog of repairs, some IT issues and a subsequent fall in customer service standards.
Whilst we estimate that less than 10% of UK customers served by our repair facilities during this time have been affected by this issue, we recognise that is not the point. We inconvenienced and disappointed those customers, and did not deliver on our brand promise. This is simply not acceptable and, for that, we would like to offer our sincerest apologies.
We have now conducted a thorough review of our repair centre operations and have put in place a number of measures to ensure that service is never eclipsed by an operational failure of this magnitude again. Today, our UK service operation is stable and performing at the same level or better than our service commitments, and we are using the learnings from this experience to change and improve process and management worldwide.
Any of our customers who may have issues outstanding should contact us on +44 845 890 0079, where our team will be on hand to assist them.
With regards to the four cases that Watchdog highlighted, we have personally apologised to Ms Holmes, Mr Meiklejohn, Mr Kenyon and Mr Oakley and can confirm that all four customers have confirmed that their individual issues have been resolved and that they have been appropriately compensated for the time and distress caused by the repair delays.
Once again we are extremely apologetic about the fall in customer service standards. We remain focused on delivering the best possible experience to our customers and continue to strive to meet our customer promise.
Watchdog Q&A
Does HTC believe that the service outlined in the above cases is acceptable?
Absolutely not. We have many millions of satisfied customers in the UK and, though this issue has affected less than 10% of those we were helping during the repair transition, any slip in our customer service standards is unacceptable. We apologise to those who have been affected and are committed to resolving any outstanding problems swiftly. As soon as we became aware of the situation we put in place a number of procedures to ensure that all future customer service enquiries result in a swift and satisfactory outcome. This was initiated in May 2011 and rolled out in the subsequent weeks.
All systems flaws, process and IT integration gaps have now been identified and solved. Our call centre volume has also normalised to the levels seen prior to the repair transition.
Does HTC have any plans in place to improve its customer service and its process of repairs for customers?
A dedicated team led by our Chief Operating Officer has been put in place and has conducted a thorough review of our repair centre operations to address the issues that led to the case backlog.
Key investments and changes implemented to ensure the highest standards of repair and customer service include:
Established and installed over-capacity to ensure performance
Assigned performance manager to drive ongoing improvements
Improved technical competence and repair process through on-site training
Assigned expert engineering support
Updated process and support approach for better and faster customer issue resolution
Invested in IT to provide support staff with end-to-end view on repair status and shipment status of devices
As a result of the above measures, we are now seeing shorter turnaround times with regards to repairs and repair quality/customer service issues and are meeting our targets.
We note that HTC is a fast-growing company - does HTC think that this has been a factor in the issues that customers have experienced?
It is true that our growth has been phenomenal. Last year, we sold 25 million handsets worldwide. However, this does not make it acceptable for some of our customers, even if a tiny minority, to have had an unsatisfactory experience with us. We are thoroughly committed to making sure that all repairs moving forward are handled in-line with our brand promise.
For the video and the watchdog site please click this link >>>> www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2011/10/htc_phones.html
From watchdog
'Quietly brilliant' is their tagline. Yet, when it comes to customer service Watchdog's heard quite the opposite. Newsround's Ricky Boleto investigates.
Julie Holmes says her experience with HTC has put her off the company for good. She bought an HTC Desire in July 2010 but after just a few months started having problems - it started switching itself off and wouldn't make calls - so she sent it back to HTC for a repair. She didn't hear anything for a month so decided to chase them up. She then received her handset in the post but it was missing a battery and the back was covered in biscuit crumbs.
Julie was then promised a new battery but this never materialised. After several weeks of using an old handset, she got so fed up she bought herself a new battery, only to discover that the original problem hadn't been fixed and the phone still wouldn't work properly. Julie sent the phone back again and after another month of waiting, was forced to chase the repair. This time, HTC eventually came clean and admitted the phone was lost. Julie was sent a refurbished phone as a replacement but is still waiting for the headphones to go with it.
Julie's not alone. Watchdog has received over a hundred complaints about HTC's customer service this year alone. Rob Meiklejohn and James Kenyon are among them.
Rob's HTC Hero developed a problem with its speaker and so he sent it in for a repair in March. But when it was returned to him, it was damaged around the corners. Since then, Rob says he sent his phone in twice for repairs to the cosmetic damage. Both times HTC kept the phone for around 3 weeks and then just sent it back to him, still damaged, without any sign of work having been done. Another frustrated customer, Rob's also been put off using HTC products again.
James' HTC headache saw him send back his phone 4 times, so he's been without a phone for over 2 months. He says HTC sent him back a different phone when he was expecting his own to be repaired and then, after agreeing to send him a replacement, they sent him back his own phone but with all the data wiped from it. Without a courtesy phone during this time or an apology from HTC, James is not impressed. 'They just keep cocking up', he says.
William Oakley got so frustrated with HTC that he decided to vent his frustrations in public - he went on the HTC UK Facebook page and expressed his annoyance. He'd been offered a warranty repair to his phone so sent it back and then it went missing for over a month. HTC claimed they'd sent it back to him and later claimed the courier had lost it. Finally they said they wouldn't be repairing it under warranty and that he'd have to pay for the repair. William's Facebook tactic worked in his favour and he was contacted shortly afterwards by a HTC representative. However, for William, this was too little too late.
William's not alone - plenty of customers have expressed similar feelings on Facebook and of course, to Watchdog. We've heard of handsets that don't get fixed, handsets being returned damaged and handsets that don't come back at all.
HTC might claim to be one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile world but, judging by all the complaints, maybe they're growing a bit too fast?
HTC Statement:
As a company, our key focus is ensuring that our customers have the best possible experience when dealing with HTC. Unfortunately earlier this year, we experienced some issues with one of our repair centres which resulted in lower than expected customer service standards. We are sincerely sorry that we disappointed some of our customers and are fully committed to resolving any outstanding issues swiftly.
HTC has 44 repair centres across Europe, including four in the UK. Between March and May 2011, we transitioned one of our UK centres to a new partner to provide extended capacity and better service for our customers. Unfortunately, the move was not as smooth as we'd planned and this led to a backlog of repairs, some IT issues and a subsequent fall in customer service standards.
Whilst we estimate that less than 10% of UK customers served by our repair facilities during this time have been affected by this issue, we recognise that is not the point. We inconvenienced and disappointed those customers, and did not deliver on our brand promise. This is simply not acceptable and, for that, we would like to offer our sincerest apologies.
We have now conducted a thorough review of our repair centre operations and have put in place a number of measures to ensure that service is never eclipsed by an operational failure of this magnitude again. Today, our UK service operation is stable and performing at the same level or better than our service commitments, and we are using the learnings from this experience to change and improve process and management worldwide.
Any of our customers who may have issues outstanding should contact us on +44 845 890 0079, where our team will be on hand to assist them.
With regards to the four cases that Watchdog highlighted, we have personally apologised to Ms Holmes, Mr Meiklejohn, Mr Kenyon and Mr Oakley and can confirm that all four customers have confirmed that their individual issues have been resolved and that they have been appropriately compensated for the time and distress caused by the repair delays.
Once again we are extremely apologetic about the fall in customer service standards. We remain focused on delivering the best possible experience to our customers and continue to strive to meet our customer promise.
Watchdog Q&A
Does HTC believe that the service outlined in the above cases is acceptable?
Absolutely not. We have many millions of satisfied customers in the UK and, though this issue has affected less than 10% of those we were helping during the repair transition, any slip in our customer service standards is unacceptable. We apologise to those who have been affected and are committed to resolving any outstanding problems swiftly. As soon as we became aware of the situation we put in place a number of procedures to ensure that all future customer service enquiries result in a swift and satisfactory outcome. This was initiated in May 2011 and rolled out in the subsequent weeks.
All systems flaws, process and IT integration gaps have now been identified and solved. Our call centre volume has also normalised to the levels seen prior to the repair transition.
Does HTC have any plans in place to improve its customer service and its process of repairs for customers?
A dedicated team led by our Chief Operating Officer has been put in place and has conducted a thorough review of our repair centre operations to address the issues that led to the case backlog.
Key investments and changes implemented to ensure the highest standards of repair and customer service include:
Established and installed over-capacity to ensure performance
Assigned performance manager to drive ongoing improvements
Improved technical competence and repair process through on-site training
Assigned expert engineering support
Updated process and support approach for better and faster customer issue resolution
Invested in IT to provide support staff with end-to-end view on repair status and shipment status of devices
As a result of the above measures, we are now seeing shorter turnaround times with regards to repairs and repair quality/customer service issues and are meeting our targets.
We note that HTC is a fast-growing company - does HTC think that this has been a factor in the issues that customers have experienced?
It is true that our growth has been phenomenal. Last year, we sold 25 million handsets worldwide. However, this does not make it acceptable for some of our customers, even if a tiny minority, to have had an unsatisfactory experience with us. We are thoroughly committed to making sure that all repairs moving forward are handled in-line with our brand promise.
For the video and the watchdog site please click this link >>>> www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2011/10/htc_phones.html
From watchdog
