How poor customer service could terminally damage your business - Part 2

In my last blog Why "Customer Focus" is the first principle of ISO 9001 Quality Management – and how poor customer service could terminally damage your business. I explained at the end that I had my own story to tell.

I tell you now, that this is a rip-roaring roller coaster of a story, and you may want to make a cup, or flask, of coffee. Possibly scroll down and decide if you wish to proceed. When I wrote the draft it came to 36 pages in Verdana 10 point, with images.

Are we sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.

My recent negative experiences as a customer of HTC have driven me to add this case study as an example of a real-life situation where a wholly loyal customer can be driven to despair and to look for other providers due to poor customer service.

I need to first state that I was an HTC “fanboy” for around six years, after originally being introduced to the Taiwanese company by my wife, and that the following commentary is factual and based on emails and phone calls had with 4 different tiers of escalation within HTC (So I am not sued!).

I was never really drawn to Apple products or the ecosystem, so having access to a product that could compete on quality and features has always been a desire. No pun intended!

Since my first HTC purchase of the Desire in 2010, which was alleged to be the first phone to be an "iPhone killer," to my most recent purchase of the HTC 10, I have been a loyal customer, to the point of buying no other handsets.

Front facing speakers on the HTC M8, aluminium unibodies, the first selfie camera with optical image stabilisation… so many reasons to be a fan.

Sadly, this run came to an end at the end of last year, after experiencing the HTC after-sales service here in the UK when my phone suffered out of warranty damage... a drop resulting in spider web cracks across the screen.

"Why?" I hear someone cry in the distance... well for a number of reasons.

The HTC.com/uk website is weak... very weak... and since the launch of the new "U" handsets, is even weaker.

Before you would click on support and try to find support on repairs, and you would land here;

Sadly unhelpful, as although the link states "How do I get my product repaired?" it circles you through the support area, or the help app for diagnostics... it has no active information on how I get my product repaired.

There is no link to a service centre, or any indicative costs of repair.

Since the launch of the HTC U handsets there isn't even this sad loop.

Perhaps a search will help?

Let's try searching for "damage."

477 results. All the same... well I guess, I didn't click every link.

OK, what about searching for "Out of warranty damage"

Hmmmm... 6 results. Not related to out of warranty damage. Odd.

One last search.... "Broken screen"

Oh dear.

So, perhaps my searches were not the most complex or complete. It happens.

Let's take a look at Apple.

Apple have pricing on their sites, very clear pricing. If you have Apple Care+, or not, you can immediately see the cost of repair for screen damage or other damage.

Clear, OPEN pricing. Apple Care+ coveres two incidents of accidental damage, with an excess... AND out-of-warranty damage too. Helpful!

Shame I don't buy Apple!

So... HTC's site may be clunky and unhelpful, but that's not the end of the world, and ultimately forgivable. Right?

Without the information I need, I decided to call customer support, further wasting my time and theirs.

Customer Support could be reached by dialing an 084 number… a “non-geographic” number. A number that no longer appears on the website. Or at least I couldn't find it.

084 number... 084…? WARNING, WARNING!!!! Something clicked.

Having worked in telecoms some years ago, I was aware that my mobile service provider Vodafone charges a premium fee per minute, unless I have a special bolt-on package to give 084 number minutes.

Many 084 and 087 numbers were “profit share” numbers, which meant the customers costs subsidised that phone line, and often the company would receive a further rebate. I am sure this couldn’t be the case with HTC… could it?

So… imagine my surprise and displeasure when I checked before calling and saw this;

If I had been calling unaware, I would have been charged 55p per minute for a minimum of one-minute, plus a service charge (7p?)… a ten minute conversation… an extra six pounds for the pleasure of talking to a support team member. Not great, especially if I was counting the pennies.

Instead I called the number you should call if dialing from overseas, which is an 020, and INCLUDED within mobile call minutes.

(I should add that things are now even worse... there is NO customer service number or contact us link, that I could find at the time of writing this blog)

The phone rang and I got through to a pleasant young woman who answered my call and was very polite, friendly and helpful, but couldn’t give me any real facts. She was grateful I didn't shout at her, and she said I was very nice. Well... no need to shoot her, she is there to help me, right?

This appeared to be a Philippines based call centre. I have no problems with overseas call centres. Her English was great, and she was a credit to the company.

That said, I wondered why she couldn't help me. It seemed because she had not been given much information and that the HTC systems did not really include any "preferred providers." She also told me she was "shaking right now" because she was off script.

I was advised that there were no UK service centres and that if I wanted my phone to be repaired it would need to be sent to Poland. Poland?! Plus, the cost may be more than the phone (Which cost around ï¿¡500 with my 10% discount for buying direct and early), it would be factory wiped and taken away for around two weeks or three weeks.

Not an attractive proposition. I just wanted a screen repair.

I decided to post on Facebook and Twitter. Without much joy. Not being part of the Twitter Nation, I didn't realise my post would only be visible to those who follow me, and my Facebook responses were not very helpful.

Note: I wanted to add my Facebook post, as a screen grab, but it looks as though it was deleted... along with every other visitor message.

We moved to private message on Twitter, which moved me along a little, but only as far as to receive a long, cut and paste message that ignored responding to my own message content.

The cut and paste told me I would pay ï¿¡27 for review and factory wipe of my phone, and then and only then would I be told the cost of repair.

I don't have enough energy to paste the whole, sad conversation here. The team were polite, as usual, but not helpful.

I don't know how many of you dear readers would think that is reasonable, however I did not, and refused the offer.

Being the persistent sort, I was directed to Tier II escalations, and had contact with "Cage."

After a number of failed attempts at contact (me being on calls and in meetings, because I do actually work as well!) we got to talk... and got cut off... and I had a voice message to phone back... On the premium number.

Frustration comes and goes, but I retained my calm and finally got back to Cage after further messages to HTC via Twitter message.

As nice as Cage was, polite, professional and helpful... I had to escalate again... and hopefully not die trying.

I emailed, thanking Cage and his team, and requested escalation to a senior manager. I reiterated my issues.

Here is that mail, sent on the 14 Sep 2016.

Dear Cage,

Thank you for your time and efforts over the last two days, I appreciate it.

Despite your best efforts, and those of your colleagues, I would very much like to escalate my complaint beyond you to a senior manager or ideally a director of the company. Please do not take offence at my request.

I will assure anyone I speak to that you and all of your team mates were warm, professional and supportive during the complaint process. I have no issues with any of you, and I understand that you are only able to work with the tools you have.

I should add that I am already talking to ******** who is the *Senior staff at HTC* and I am paying premium costs to message him through LinkedIn, to share my concerns about HTC’s levels of customer care. I will advise him that I continue to try and escalate this matter to “Big HTC” but I felt it pertinent that a member of senior management in the UK is aware of the bad feeling towards your company. Whether he can or will do anything about it, we will see.

I have attempted to remain polite, calm and professional, but this has gotten me nowhere.

It does make me wonder whether shouting and swearing will take me anywhere better, or at least relieve my stress… however that won’t happen. I know you are all doing a job and you have limits to your “powers” so why give you a bad day? :)

I appreciate the kind comments from your team mates who liked being spoken to nicely. And they deserve it.

I am not prepared to give up this fight until I am either satisfied that HTC care about their UK customers or I move away to Samsung and share my thoughts with the world as reciprocation.

It is a shame that HTC are failing you and your team of hardworking, professional staff and delivering you unhappy customers.

HTC may or may not be aware of all of the negative attention that your weak support site and poor signposting is creating, but I have spoken to a number of other people who have had the misfortune of damaging their phone whilst uninsured for repair.

HTC staff have made it very clear about out of warranty damage not being covered… we all know this… however your website www.htc.com/uk/support is total GARBAGE.

It does not answer questions and sends you around in circles until you phone someone. By this time you are upset, and if you use the 0845 number listed you pay 55p per minute plus the charges your company levies. I used the 0203 number which is included within my minutes, so I averted issues.

I can imagine many people will phone 0845 and then get a horrible bill. More anger to HTC, I bet. 

Recommendation: Remove the 0845 number and do not try to profit from someone complaining. 0845 and 0870 numbers are profit share numbers. Shame on you! https://conversation.which.co.uk/technology/premium-rate-phone-number-customer-service-complaints-0845-0870/

I further recommend that your directors remove the time-wasting nonsense web pages that give no direction and then force people to call you, and be upset about it, and put something genuinely helpful in place.

After the wasted time on the site, and then avoiding your abusive phone charges, being told that I have to pay ï¿¡27 to send the phone for a diagnostic, is a joke. A courier cost here can be as little as ï¿¡3.50 to ï¿¡5.00 for a company of your size.

That you do not list the three approved repairers on your site is an even bigger joke! Even Apple publicise the costs of repair.

To be further advised that sending my phone will mean it is wiped clean and then a diagnostic run and THEN I am told how much it will cost is a joke.

Lots of jokes, but none funny.

I REFUSE to send a handset somewhere without knowing in advance what the cost will be. I can understand that you may need to say “In the case of a damaged screen and LCD the cost is X, however if we discover any further issues further costs may be incurred.” Simple. Expectations managed.

I understand that you need to ensure that the handset is resolved and does not come back again at your cost, but when it is very clear what the damage is, there should be a published tariff.

Imagine a restaurant with no prices on the menu… there are quite a few, but typically they are for very wealthy people. Customers want transparency, especially customers who do not have much money.

Many people aspire to have an HTC 10. I have had lots of compliments, until I shattered the screen. I continued to use it as it was because I couldn’t get a straight answer. Great advert for HTC? No.

I am not a wealthy person, however I am lucky that the money is not the issue, unlike the other complainants, including the young mother whose son cracked her screen and cannot afford to repair it or get a straight answer.

She was also told the phone would go to Poland and again it was unclear of repair costs. She will now continue to use a cracked HTC. Great advert for HTC? No.

I bought the phone through my business as I wanted to have aspirational hardware, and I have been a loyal customer (mostly via Vodafone) since the HTC Desire in circa 2010. I loved HTC and spoke to everyone about what a great product they have. I am no longer having these conversations.

I have been without my HTC 10 for two weeks now, but I have been offered a fixed price repair. Sadly if I accept it my warranty will be invalidated but I am prepared to take that risk rather than “gamble” on being told my repair will cost the same as a new phone.

So… please escalate this as far to the top as possible, so I can speak with someone who will take MASSIVE action to remedy the damage that is being done to your company, fix your weak support site, and implement something along the lines of the US “uh-oh” service where you get a free replacement within the first 12 months of ownership, and if not used a $100 discount on your next HTC handset.

THAT is customer service.

THAT will ensure that far less HTC customers in the UK are walking around with embarrassingly broken handsets.

THAT will bring people back and THAT will retain customers.

I genuinely look forward to hearing from someone senior to you Cage, because as lovely and helpful as you are, you have NOT fixed my problem or the problem that many other UK customers have.

Note: I am not going to go away, so please do make sure someone replies.

I would prefer to talk by email, as you know I am very busy and as a consultant I am often busy during your office hours. Also my horrible handset does not allow me to talk due to the poor reception, as you have experienced.

Thank you and best wishes to all of the team, and I hope your senior management realise that it would save a lot of wasted time and bad feeling to make a few moves towards US service.

The time of this email is 17.30 GMT, I look forward to seeing when and if I get a response.

Sincerely,

Dave 

I had started dialogue with a senior manager, in the hope that trying something different might help.

Meanwhile, I pursued my dogged pursuit of a good response from the Support team. It took a day, but I had a reply. This time from "Paul - HTC Written Response Supervisor"

I was getting somewhere! Or was I...?

Hi Dave,

Thank you for contacting HTC.

Please accept my sincerest apologies regarding the matter at hand. I personally would like to thank you for bringing the matter to my attention.

I have read your letter to complaint and will do my best to address the issues noted.

Regarding the avenues of communication with our HTC representatives, we also offer other means like chatting and email aside from calling in on our support hotline.

As for the diagnostic fee of ï¿¡27, this mainly is more than the fee for shipping. This covers the cost of packaging, labour, machinery and tools used to perform the diagnostic test. (Cost of machinery?! Really!?!?)

Unfortunately, the information about the costs of repair is not made available to us and is only cascaded to us by our repair center. In this manner, due to costs of parts being subject to change, is the main reason the costs are not published. The charges will depend on the exchange rate and the probable costs of importing materials.

Lastly, the schemes we have such as the “uh-oh” service varies per geographical region and market. In our defense, the US region only honors 24 months warranty while us here in the UK have 48 months.

Please be advised that every county and region is managed differently which diversifies our dynamic customer service.

I hope this information is helpful. For more details and updates about HTC devices and services, please visit our website at https://www.htc.com/uk/.

Again, thank you very much for choosing HTC. We truly value your continued business.

Sincerely,

Paul

HTC Written Correspondence Team Supervisor

Not the response I was looking for. I stated this quite clearly in my response.

Nope. Not good enough Paul.

You will certainly not have my continued business either.

As per my earlier request, I would like contact with a senior management team member or director. This does not mean supervisors or team leaders. Senior managers or directors.

I will forward this to the UK marketing team also as they will recognise that your systems are deficient.

If there is no senior response we can all look forward to my LinkedIn posting and hopefully "viral" thread that I can incite all the other hacked off HTC customers to comment on.

Your Facebook is already logging unhappy customers.

Re-read my mail. I am unhappy. I will not go away.

I am well aware of chatting, direct messages and other forms of communication. 

The problem remains that your system is failing customers and HTC staff have no powers to assist or even placate.

Please confirm that senior management will respond personally and what actions will come from my mail beyond your response.

I politely thank you for your efforts, but I remain intensely dissatisfied.

I wish to escalate.

Sincerely.

Dave

This seemed to do something... I had a phone call. "David Flagg" called me. From Egypt! Was I getting somewhere now?

I liked David. He was helpful. He gave me the information that the website needed... three different approved providers for repairs, AND the costs for each repair.

Wow... I must be nearing the end of my quest! Excitement flowed.

Towards the end of the call I told David how happy I was that I wouldn't invalidate my wonderful 4 year warranty... to receive the bad news that even with an approved service centre, warranty would be invalidated. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? My heart sank.

It therefore seemed to me that the whole premise of an approved repairer was pointless. Pointless!

Sending your customers to 3rd party to make money repairing your device, which you could replace yourselves and make further profit does not compute!

Dear Mr David Flagg and HTC,

Once again it was a pleasure to speak with a representative of my (still) favourite phone company.

I was gratified to receive a personal call, despite requesting an email (for audit trail) and your support in offering suggested prices of repairs was excellent. Put them on the website with a disclaimer that costs may be higher if the damage is more significant.

It remains a disappointment that I have not yet received a call from a Senior Manager or Director, however I understand that they are very busy and it may take time to get a more senior respondent. I can wait.

Please do not take my persistence as disrespect for you or your colleagues, I hold you all in high regard, but despite your best efforts and me receiving more information, I am not satisfied.

The fundamental issues remain the same;

1. Customers have a poor experience – I am persistent, nay dogged, in my pursuit of answers… but should I have to escalate to find out basic information that should be readily available to the client via the website or from support?
2. Why post a premium rate number than can cause a low income individual to call you and have excess charges to their bill? Remove 0845!!
3. I recognise that there are benefits like a 4 year warranty, but in the UK almost nobody holds a phone for 4 years, as contracts renew every 21-24 months (early upgrades reduce by 3 months) and others buy the new handsets when they come out (Like me.)
4. The website remains poor, does not have transparency and cues up issues for your lovely team
5. Consider how much money is being wasted fielding calls and mails from people like me
6. Consider how many people will leave angry and badmouth HTC

I don’t wish to repeat myself over and over, because time is money. There is a lot more at fault than these points, but again I do have a business to run.

HTC are currently wasting time and money due to the lack of quality management of the customer care and after-sales services, and I am (perhaps foolishly) choosing to “waste” my own time and money because I truly believe you can improve significantly.

I am looking this as an investment in the future of my love affair with HTC.

As I said David, I see no reason why I shouldn’t use HTC for the rest of my life, other than the poor after care.

Consider a repair or replace service… if a new screen and LCD with diagnostics etc might cost ￡140 or so, why not just send a new phone, and cut out the third parties? Reclaim the old phone, evidence it was correct and supplied, and send out new. Customer is happy, new handset, and you make more profit and the customer remains in warranty.

Wow. Am I a genius?

I didn’t realise that your third party service invalidates warranty… a repair gives 3 months warranty… then it’s over.

Question: Why bother using an approved supplier, then? If it breaks, it’s wrecked. Lots of people may break their phone in the 48 month period you currently cover it for.

I was holding off my repair because I believed that it would not invalid warranty. Now I know it is invalid after 3 months I think “Meh.”

Please, please, please, please, please, please connect me to someone who will discuss your fundamental failures of the quality management and I will be happy to give yet more of my time to support your business to a happy ending.

This process has been at times painful, others entertaining, but it sadly seems that it is not yet near the end.

HTC can do much better! So come on a journey of continual improvement with me J

Do you have ISO 9001? Do you have lists of complaints? I can only imagine they are loooong. How do you close out complaints?At present it looks as though you send people off, disappointed and angry, rather than trending them (as I have) and seeing a horrible pattern that makes you look as though UK clients are substandard. Your people have no real protection or way to defuse the anger of your clients. A series of empty platitudes will not calm people.

I am beyond being angry and have settled into a state of peace and calm, because I remember even a bad day for me is better than some people’s best days… and because I am a patient man.

I do not wish to be a thorn in the side, but a supportive customer who has skills and can support you into better practice.

I have worked as HTC “Inside sales” every time someone complimented my handsets over the years… I can spout features and benefits like few others. It saddens me lately that my comments on HTC have been negative.

Please don’t let me lose the love.

I add that I am a quick typist, 70-80wpm on a good day, and in this circumstance I am typing almost as I think, so please excuse errors, oversights or repetition.

Sincerely,

Dave

Four days later I was back in contact with my good friend, Paul, HTC Written Response Supervisor.

Dear Dave,

Good day!

Thank you for your response and please accept my sincerest apologies regarding the matter at hand.

I deeply apologise for the inconvenience caused by the delay in getting a feedback regardig your concerns and would like to thank you for your constructive feedback.

Customer service remains extremely important to HTC as a company and our customer service teams work hard to create positive customer experience. I recognize that with the handling of your case, we as a business did not meet your expectations. Unfortunately, we as a company currently have these processes in place. Your feedback on how customer service should be served is greatly appreciated and will be forwarded to the right department.

I am currently your highest point of contact, hence your request to speak to a Senior Manager or a Director will not be possible.

Yours most sincerely,

Paul

HTC UK Written Correspondence Supervisor

"I am currently your highest point of contact, hence your request to speak to a Senior Manager or Director will not be possible."

Grrrrrrr. Not happy at all.

Dear Paul,

Thank you for your disappointing and badly typed email. (I know, I should be more mature!)

I continue to request an escalation before I take this Viral on LinkedIn.com and Facebook. If threatening a company I have supported for six years is how it needs to be, I can do that.

I do not accept that you are the highest point of contact and request, again, contact with a senior manager or director.

Please feel to refuse, I will look forward to reciprocating on behalf of all of the disgusted UK customers.

I have requested escalation and your responses are insufficient.

Please confirm the escalation before I take to LinkedIn and find my own route. 

Dave 

Resorting to threats... Ouch.

Paul wrote back.

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your reply and thank you for your patience regarding the matter. (Well done Paul for remaining polite and professional in light of my last message!)

Rest assured that the concerns you have raised are treated as an escalated case, however the changes you seek will obviously not happen overnight.

As of this moment, the policies we have in place as a company is what we will follow. These processes have undergone different phases of approval before even being implemented as a whole.

Please feel free to take the matter as you wish, unfortunately, your request to speak to a senir (ouch) manager or a director will still not be possible.

I hope this information is helpful. For more details and updates about HTC devices and services, please visit our website at https://www.htc.com/uk/.

Again, thank you very much for choosing HTC. We truly value your continued business.

Sincerely, 

Paul

Ok... so... What now? Beg a bit more? I persisted.

Good day :)

I am still unhappy and wish to escalate, despite your attempts to block it.

I have tried contacting the HTC EU President, without success, and continue to work my way through the personnel I can find on LinkedIn who may or may not care to respond either.

What might satisfy me is to know how my complaint will be escalated and to which departments and to see if there really is any point continuing to support your company with thousands of my pounds, when it appears that in reality your focus is not on customer retention, but sales… which we know haven’t been great.

How about a junior manager, or even someone who can feed in to other management?

I really fail to see how my request can be refused… are people “too busy” or just “don’t care” or am I too hopeful that a company cares about their clients.

Take a leaf out of Virgin’s book… Richard Branson remains available if something is important enough.

I am trying to tell you how to stop losing customers and I am being blocked.

Not really happy with that.

Looking forward to your further contact.

Dave 

Meanwhile, back on LinkedIn messaging, I sent my mails to the senior manager who we will call Mr X to protect his identity. Not that he really deserves it, because he fed me heaps of BS since.

He was kind enough (I thought) to respond to the point of acknowledging the amount of time and effort spent trying to get responses.

I was asked my address. Fearing assassins, I asked not to be terminated... then advised I was not fishing for a replacement, but to help with HTC's continual improvement. This was never, ever about a handset replacement to make me go away... it was about clarity and love for the customer.

So.... where did my quest end?

A couple more emails, with me deciding to give up. Yes. I quit.

Paul remained professional and helpful, as were ALL of the HTC staff to whom I spoke. There are certainly many things great about HTC, but the escalation process is appalling.

To be pushed to spend multiple InMail messages (ï¿¡7.95 each usually, but I get some included within my Premium account) to try and get attention, and to stalk the heck out of poor old Paul confirms that the customer service experience is broken.

Going over my old emails I mailed Paul again, advising him it was 3 months and a day since we last "spoke."

He responded again on the Monday, apologising he was out on the Friday and that he would continue to pursue some sort of response.

I forwarded my mail and the start of this blog post to the senior manager.

He replied fairly quickly.

Hi Dave,

I appreciate the time you must've spent putting this together plus the other mails you've sent because it's helpful for us to improve. We don't get everything right here that's true but we are much smaller as a company than our competition and so we do what we can as best we can. To be honest sometimes it takes our customers to help us out and you have through showing us where we're going wrong.

The reason I asked for your address was because I was aware of our new product coming out and I was hoping to send you it in return for how you've helped us understand where we need to improve a clearly rather painful customer service experience. Your feedback is being actioned as we speak to improve our service.

Its my intention to be in touch again when I can be with a product which I believe you'll find continues the brilliant tradition HTC has in smartphone design and engineering. I also hope you'll appreciate the design and stay an HTC enthusiast even if our customer service has tried your patience!

Speak soon.

Regards

Mr X

Awwwww.... he cares. Great response, but then he is a marketing man. I wrote back.

Jan 11

Dave Rushton sent the following message at 11:02 AM

Dear Mr X, Thank you for the message.

It has been challenging, yes, but as I have stated throughout I do love HTC and the HTC products have always been my only choice for the last 6 years.

I know there is a launch tomorrow, and my first choice would always have been the Ultra U, and I was only veering to the Galaxy Note due to my bad experience.

I will wait and see what happens, and if you do not object I will post my blog and mention your name as the person who resolved it and see if anything changes. Or I can remove your name and mention a senior person.

I would love to offer support to review the systems, as I can see a few simple changes that will make the world of difference. We work on quality management for the pharmaceutical industry, which suffers higher regulations and penalties.

OnePlus are on your tail, they have a better aftersales at present with their On-Guard insurance, with a low excess.

I didn't give up because I do love HTC and I am more persistent/stubborn than most.

Good luck with the launch tomorrow, I am sure you are very busy, and thanks for writing.

Dave

I didn't particularly "wait" or "expect" but over two months later, and there was no contact, the site had deteriorated rather than improved and the promised "bribe" did not arrive, I felt it time to bring down the hammer.

11:02 AM

Mar 17

Dave Rushton sent the following message at 6:51 AM

Well. It's a definite fail.

The site is worse than ever. There are even less ways to make contact for help, and the suggested commiseration prize (that I neither needed, asked for, but was kindly offered by you) has failed to materialise.

Size of your company does not matter, and your company is big enough.

It's about caring about your customers. Take a hard look at companies like Virgin for some inspiration.

Looks like the OnePlus 5 will be my next handset as I dislike the Samsung UI and loathe Apple and you lot don't deserve my money. On that point I learned about OnePlus from your people during my weeks of complaining, because they could that see I love good hardware #awkward?

Weak and disappointing.

The blog was never a threat Mr X, I never asked for anything more than fixing your sh*t support, but you offered something so I gave you a chance to make good on your promise so I could give it a happy ending.

Now it gets a crappy ending ??

Companies that don't prioritise clients lose market share and suffer.

Oh, right, that's what happened to HTC.

I will retag you in the 2nd blog so you can feel free to comment.

Not saying I won't buy HTC again. Maybe Vive later.

But right now, you are right down the list.

Good luck and best.

I calmed down... and actually did try again. And despite his failure to assist, or outright lies, I won't tag him. It isn't his fault his company is failing, but it was disappointing that promises weren't kept.

I even tried reaching out to a PA, who turned out to be ex-staff, and although she claimed to contact someone, she went quiet.

I then contacted a new senior manager... who directly spoke to Mr X, and then fed back "as has he more experience of HTC and our processes (I have been with the company for one month) we agreed it would be best if he continues to correspond with you."

But again Mr X went quiet, and I am left nowhere.

Well, dagnabbit.

Did I hang on because of the lure of a new device? No.

I cannot deny the thought of a new device appealed, because I LOVE (not loveD!) HTC... but more because it has been recognised that my feedback is valid and is being actioned.

It was never about money, never about something for free... but about quality management and fighting for the love I held for them for such a long time.

Sadly HTC have declined as they have lost sight of what people want, and lost care for their clients, but their losses are decreasing and the HTC Vive could be a winner for them.

The U Ultra, with its 4 microphones, liquid back and other features failed to impress, it would seem.

I genuinely hope that HTC "find their happy" and that they bring new products to the table that make them great again... but they really must fix the hemorrhage of customers and abuse to their customer service team that their poor after sales support creates.

After talking to so many of their staff it is evident that HTC have failed them... I asked if they used HTC handsets, and they didn't. One senior team member has Samsung, despite working for HTC for over five years. I even learned about OnePlus from one of the team, because he recognised I like good hardware after I gushed about the HTC 10 and why I bought it.

Ouch.

HTC, give your staff phones! Let them be your brand ambassadors. Hearing of competitor companies and that senior people use Samsung is a sign you really don't have a clue.

HTC, swap broken phones for refurbished ones instead of forcing a screen repair that also invalidates your warranty.

HTC, be clear about pricing and show some love. People expect much more than you currently have to offer.

I used this case study today, during a training session, to evidence why poorly handled complaints will damage reputations.

Want to know more about quality management or put a complaints system in place that will make your customers feel the love?

Drop me a line and our team will be glad to help.

Welcome to a new paradigm!