Everyday we use so many products and services. There are always once in a while some products and services that will surprise you with the quality ( read extremely as well as extremely bad). I always share my experiences on facebook as well as twitter. This brings awareness in your circle about the first hand experience.
Just a couple of months back, I contacted Dell twitter handle ( US ) about where can I buy a dell laptop charger in Pune. Within an hour the handle replied and straight away asked for my service tag. In a matter of minutes, he replied back that my charger is in warranty and will be replaced free of cost. Woah ! I never thought that my charger which is little less than 2 year old could be in warranty. My bad that I assumed the warranty period of 1 year. The dell guys might be having a procedure to always check warranty status ( which is smart ). He quickly noted my address and contact number via twitter DM. The next day the courier delivered my swanky new charger. Isn't this awesome, quick and so customer friendly. I did not filled up any online forms or dropped any emails. Just a few tweets and a direct message ( DM ). Thats it !
When you have such customer experience, your life is good and then you believe every company of repute would thrive to provide such experience. But I had never imagined that how I will be treated by Microsoft Nokia customer care. My ordeal started in Dec-2014 when my in-warranty Lumia 720 suddenly started behaving weirdly. The touchscreen went kaput as my apps suddenly began to open on its own even without touching the screen. The apps would open and send some random texts in apps like WhatsApp. Since my phone was in-warranty so decide to visit nokia care center ( NCC ). My phone was submitted to Mobile Link, Hadapsar, Pune. The NCC is located on the highway but the entrance is through back of the the old dingy building which was bit awkward and look unsafe. As I entered the center it was empty with no customers around ( ~10:30AM ). It was my first visit in years and nokia care centers were usually bustling with customers and you use to have a waiting period. It was stark in contrast to what I was use to. I have been Nokia fan and started my journey with them in 2001-02 with Nokia 3310. Most of my mobile handsets have been from Nokia just because of their excellent hardware quality backed by wide and reliable customer care centers. Comes December 2014 and my impression has totally changed for Nokia mobiles and I can see why no customers or buyers for Nokia Microsoft phones.
I waited for around 10 minutes at one of the 5 counters ( approx ) where there were only two customers including me. Finally a lady attends me and informs me that touchscreen needs to be replaced with costs around Rs.6000 but will be done free of cost as it is in-warranty repair. She hands me jobsheet and stamps it "attendid within 10 mins" which I believe is a feat. My question which may sound irrelevant but I had to wait at the counter with no attendent at the counter. Anyways the turnaround time for my phone to be repaired was 10 days and I asked for a standby phone. I was "rudely" informed that Nokia has no such policy. Argument went on how do you expect a customer to be without his mobile phone for 10 days.As center manager was not there I asked for his number and told them that I will formally lodged a complaint online with Nokia/Microsoft. On hearing this, they made a phone call ( assuming its Manager ) and decided to handover an old worn out Nokia Asha phone which was not a smartphone. I agreed to take the phone as atleast I will be able to make and take calls rather than renting out a smartphone from market.
I cam back and found out that Standby phone was a faulty one and worked only on speaker phone. I contacted again NCC and tweet for help to @LumiaHelp for standby phone. Below is the smart conversation I had with Nokia twitter handle.
NCC refused me another phone and twitter conversation was going nowhere. I rented out a smartphone as I could not afford to keep my number switched off. After 4-5 days of emailing and phone calls, Nokia decided to give me a working smartphone. The phone was again in bad shape with sim card coming out as the lock was not working properly. I have to put a cello-tape on lock as my phone was going offline due this.
Certainly phone so worn out that I would be ashamed of taking it out of pocket ( atleast me ). There is hardly any app working on it as it was an old phone working on windows 7.1.
So after around 14-15 days I asked for my phone both at NCC and online contacts. Interestingly, NCC told me it is coming on saturday ( 27-Dec-14 ) and online guys told me we will update you soon ( which they never updated me till the writing of this post). Below are the email and twitter conversations with my remarks where they kept me fooling. They never bothered to give clear communication on the status of repair or delivery.
Don't even rely on the online repair status link at microsoft website. Its hardly reliable, for first 15 days it never showed that my phone was under repair. And now all it shows is that it under repair with no further info or updates. Here is a link
http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/mobile/support/repair-check/
With over a month gone and no clear status of phone, I was getting impatient. As a customer, I need to be inform of clear status of repair and delivery time specially when officially you have gave it in writing that it will be repaired within 10 days.
Clearly I was not getting help from emails, twitter, customer care phone calls ( which they hardly contacted me ). I started calling local NCC, Hadapsar,Pune where my phone was submitted. I use to make weekly calls to them to track my repair and they use to have a standard reply that I will get my phone next "saturday". With one month gone, I called up NCC, Hadapsar, Pune and asked for honest status of my phone and again got a standard reply that it will be delivered on saturday. I told the agent to connect me to Manager of NCC. Mr. Sumeet, Manager, NCC, Hadapsar, Pune came on phone after a waiting for 10 mins on phone. As soon he came on phone, the first question he ( very ) rudely asked me was " Did you abuse my guys ?" He tried to bully me around and digress from the actual issue. Soon the conversation got into heated argument as I wanted my phone back ASAP. I was done and does not wanted to go through all this harassment. Soon that rude conversation from Manager turned into threatening conversation.
I was feeling as if I am talking to some goon forget about a manager from a reputed company like Microsoft-Nokia who was supposed to listen to my queries and help me resolve it. I immediately dropped an email to customer care including Customer Service Head India - Mr. Daljeet Behl so that they step in to control the matter and take appropriate action. No one likes be threatened !
Unfortunately, Nokia / Microsoft never replied to my email or cared about calling me to get details about the incident.
Till date ( 16-Jan-15 ) I have neither received my phone nor refund. All I am left with is the option of going to Consumer Court of India for all the harassment and zero service at the hands of Nokia/Microsoft.
Why You Should'nt Be Buying Microsoft Lumia Phones
Just a couple of months back, I contacted Dell twitter handle ( US ) about where can I buy a dell laptop charger in Pune. Within an hour the handle replied and straight away asked for my service tag. In a matter of minutes, he replied back that my charger is in warranty and will be replaced free of cost. Woah ! I never thought that my charger which is little less than 2 year old could be in warranty. My bad that I assumed the warranty period of 1 year. The dell guys might be having a procedure to always check warranty status ( which is smart ). He quickly noted my address and contact number via twitter DM. The next day the courier delivered my swanky new charger. Isn't this awesome, quick and so customer friendly. I did not filled up any online forms or dropped any emails. Just a few tweets and a direct message ( DM ). Thats it !
 |
| All I am left with is this Lumia 720 box. |
When you have such customer experience, your life is good and then you believe every company of repute would thrive to provide such experience. But I had never imagined that how I will be treated by Microsoft Nokia customer care. My ordeal started in Dec-2014 when my in-warranty Lumia 720 suddenly started behaving weirdly. The touchscreen went kaput as my apps suddenly began to open on its own even without touching the screen. The apps would open and send some random texts in apps like WhatsApp. Since my phone was in-warranty so decide to visit nokia care center ( NCC ). My phone was submitted to Mobile Link, Hadapsar, Pune. The NCC is located on the highway but the entrance is through back of the the old dingy building which was bit awkward and look unsafe. As I entered the center it was empty with no customers around ( ~10:30AM ). It was my first visit in years and nokia care centers were usually bustling with customers and you use to have a waiting period. It was stark in contrast to what I was use to. I have been Nokia fan and started my journey with them in 2001-02 with Nokia 3310. Most of my mobile handsets have been from Nokia just because of their excellent hardware quality backed by wide and reliable customer care centers. Comes December 2014 and my impression has totally changed for Nokia mobiles and I can see why no customers or buyers for Nokia Microsoft phones.
 |
| Nokia Service Terms & Conditions |
I waited for around 10 minutes at one of the 5 counters ( approx ) where there were only two customers including me. Finally a lady attends me and informs me that touchscreen needs to be replaced with costs around Rs.6000 but will be done free of cost as it is in-warranty repair. She hands me jobsheet and stamps it "attendid within 10 mins" which I believe is a feat. My question which may sound irrelevant but I had to wait at the counter with no attendent at the counter. Anyways the turnaround time for my phone to be repaired was 10 days and I asked for a standby phone. I was "rudely" informed that Nokia has no such policy. Argument went on how do you expect a customer to be without his mobile phone for 10 days.As center manager was not there I asked for his number and told them that I will formally lodged a complaint online with Nokia/Microsoft. On hearing this, they made a phone call ( assuming its Manager ) and decided to handover an old worn out Nokia Asha phone which was not a smartphone. I agreed to take the phone as atleast I will be able to make and take calls rather than renting out a smartphone from market.
I cam back and found out that Standby phone was a faulty one and worked only on speaker phone. I contacted again NCC and tweet for help to @LumiaHelp for standby phone. Below is the smart conversation I had with Nokia twitter handle.
 |
| Email Conversation with customer service regarding standby phone |
NCC refused me another phone and twitter conversation was going nowhere. I rented out a smartphone as I could not afford to keep my number switched off. After 4-5 days of emailing and phone calls, Nokia decided to give me a working smartphone. The phone was again in bad shape with sim card coming out as the lock was not working properly. I have to put a cello-tape on lock as my phone was going offline due this.
 |
| Standby Lumia Phone - completely worn out. |
So after around 14-15 days I asked for my phone both at NCC and online contacts. Interestingly, NCC told me it is coming on saturday ( 27-Dec-14 ) and online guys told me we will update you soon ( which they never updated me till the writing of this post). Below are the email and twitter conversations with my remarks where they kept me fooling. They never bothered to give clear communication on the status of repair or delivery.
Here are some twitter conversations I had which clearly shows the disconnect as well as will to resolve and update the customer. Full of standard replies.
Don't even rely on the online repair status link at microsoft website. Its hardly reliable, for first 15 days it never showed that my phone was under repair. And now all it shows is that it under repair with no further info or updates. Here is a link
http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/mobile/support/repair-check/
 |
| Microsoft Repair tracking link is useless for accurate info. |
With over a month gone and no clear status of phone, I was getting impatient. As a customer, I need to be inform of clear status of repair and delivery time specially when officially you have gave it in writing that it will be repaired within 10 days.
Clearly I was not getting help from emails, twitter, customer care phone calls ( which they hardly contacted me ). I started calling local NCC, Hadapsar,Pune where my phone was submitted. I use to make weekly calls to them to track my repair and they use to have a standard reply that I will get my phone next "saturday". With one month gone, I called up NCC, Hadapsar, Pune and asked for honest status of my phone and again got a standard reply that it will be delivered on saturday. I told the agent to connect me to Manager of NCC. Mr. Sumeet, Manager, NCC, Hadapsar, Pune came on phone after a waiting for 10 mins on phone. As soon he came on phone, the first question he ( very ) rudely asked me was " Did you abuse my guys ?" He tried to bully me around and digress from the actual issue. Soon the conversation got into heated argument as I wanted my phone back ASAP. I was done and does not wanted to go through all this harassment. Soon that rude conversation from Manager turned into threatening conversation.
I was feeling as if I am talking to some goon forget about a manager from a reputed company like Microsoft-Nokia who was supposed to listen to my queries and help me resolve it. I immediately dropped an email to customer care including Customer Service Head India - Mr. Daljeet Behl so that they step in to control the matter and take appropriate action. No one likes be threatened !
 |
| Complaint/Email for threatening me |
Till date ( 16-Jan-15 ) I have neither received my phone nor refund. All I am left with is the option of going to Consumer Court of India for all the harassment and zero service at the hands of Nokia/Microsoft.
Why You Should'nt Be Buying Microsoft Lumia Phones
- Reliability Issues : My phone touchscreen gone kaput with one year.
- No Customer Service : There customer service is zero. Read above the whole story.
- Non-Availability Of Parts : Its seems they don't of spare parts in stock. Imagine a touchscreen out of stock for a not so old model like Lumia 720.
- Harassment : You expect customer service and not Harassment and mental agony at the hands customer service agents.
- Expensive Parts : In a scenario, if a part is available and GOD forbid if you are out of warranty you won't spend Rs.6000 on a phone which is now available ( new ) say for Rs.10,000 in market now.
- Windows Ecosystem : Many popular apps have windows version now but still it no way matches iOS or Android.
Update ( 16-Jan-15 4:40PM ) : In a matter of couple of hours of sharing this blog post today on twitter, I received a phone call from Mr.Sumeet ( NCC, Hadapsar Pune ) that Microsoft has decided to offer me a new Nokia Lumia 730 which can be collected today itself. 10 mins later I received a call from Mr. Bhushan, Manager - Customer Services, Microsoft Phones ( Mumbai/Pune/Goa region ), informing about replacing my faulty Lumia 720 with new Lumia 730.
Written by Navdeep Soni
Started this as a photoblog initially but now using it as a blog to share my thought and experiences.
3 comments:
You are lucky ( pun intendid ) your phone was in-warranty. My brother's lumia had similar touchscreen issue and his warranty expired a week ago when this issue occurred. He dumped the phone as repair was too expensive.
Hi by any chance you have any contact details of Mr. Bhusan I myself am facing several issues with my Lumia
sure .. share your email id
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