Consumer Tech for June

By Susan Davis…

Consumer rating services Can Wind Up Screwing the Consumer

You’re a smart shopper; of course you are. You do your research before you buy. And you trust that when a product is rated “high” or “best buy” from one or more of the so-called independent magazines and/or online product rating services, you think that’s the way to go, and you have confidence that that mobile telephone service provider, TV maker, GPS manufacturer, cable or satellite radio service will live up to expectations. But does your research pay off? Are you happy?

Chances are you’re not, and here’s why.

When a product or service gets good marks which lead to tremendous sales, it’s easy for a company to rest on its laurels and slack off when it comes to customer service and tech support. Sometimes service and support fall so quickly that it can make your head spin. And make you sorry you ever bought into the hype.

For instance, recently, Tom-Tom, the Dutch based GPS maker, who literally created the portable and mobile based GPS industry, had three models in the top five of almost every consumer rating service in print and on line. Sales have been consistently terrific for Tom-Tom and even though US based GPS makers like Magellan and Garmin made somewhat of a comeback by becoming available at wholesale clubs, Walmart and Target, Tom-Tom has maintained a very big lead in sales.

But recently those sales have turned into a nightmare for Tom-Tom as it struggles to maintain decent customer support. Case in point, we recently got a free lifetime upgrade for maps and features via a email. I proceeded to follow the directions to attach my units online. Each unit uses a different Tom-Tom protocol for updating, so I had to download a different program for each device. No problem, that only took a few seconds. But when attaching my Tom-Toms to my PC, I noticed that upgrading, which used to take a minute, now took an hour. A quick call to a fast answering tech support resulted in “We are having some server issues” speech from the live tech support person I reached. But then I also noticed that, after an hour, the connection between my Tom-Tom and the server suddenly ended. My Tom-Tom had no new maps and in fact HAD NO MAPS AT ALL. This time the tech support lady actually walked me through the connection again only to realize that something was terribly wrong with either my unit or Tom-Tom’s server or both.

I advised her that I had another unit readying a free update and she suggested we work with that unit until third level support could figure out the issue with the first Tom-Tom. After 45 minutes my other Tom-Tom also lost all its content and was rendered useless. I would have settled for an old map at that point, but they said there was no way to do that. Tech support said that if I filled out a form they might send me a replacement unit (for both). Of no use to me, since I was upgrading them to take a trip the next day.

So, what to do?

I left both units attached to different PCs in my house just in case a miracle occurred. Well, two miracles did occur…after, get this, 14 hours! both units miraculously got an update. So, just to be nice, I called tech support to tell them what happened. They’re response was, “I guess we have too many customers and too many were getting their update so for some customers, we accidentally erased all their content.” And they had no idea how, eventually, my units worked.

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My next tale of woe concerned a simple upgrade to a non smart phone from Verizon Wireless. My free upgrade gave me the chance to get a better phone for texting. I did this by using the automated Verizon website. However, the website was having issues that day. While upgrading my new phone, it somehow managed to deactivate my spouse’s phone while activating mine. Nice, huh?

Tech support fixed that issue pretty quickly…a good thing. But when it couldn’t update my address book with its online backup system, I took the device to my local Verizon wireless store. They switched my address book to the new phone, no problem. And they were able to give me some directions on how to use the new phone. So far so good. But, as I left the store with the new phone in my pocket, it started making calls without me dialing it. So back to the store I went with a very simple question… how to turn the damn thing off before I put it in my pocket.

Seemed to me there should be an easy way to do this, but noooo. After poking and prodding and fooling with it for a good half hour, they said there was no way to turn it off before it automatically turned itself off after a minute.

So now I am not happy. Are they kidding me, there’s no way to turn it off manually? Of course there was, they just couldn’t figure it out! My friend did, in less than a minute, duh. There’s a hard button, not on the touch screen, to turn it off. Why couldn’t the Verizon techie figure it out? (OK, I should have figured it out too, but that’s not the point, it’s their job to know how the phones work.) My guess is that since Verizon wireless is still by far the most popular wireless service and still the highest rated by the experts, they got lazy.

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Nearly every one of my friends and colleagues has XM-Sirius satellite radio. The company beat the odds and survived bankruptcy and an ill conceived merger and has thrived because they stick to their core competency providing commercial free music radio for one monthly fee and some other options for a reasonable fee. However, despite their success, what the consumer magazines fail to notice is that in many parts of the country, XM-Sirius is about as reliable as a 50 watt neighborhood radio station.

On rainy days or in valleys in Connecticut or Los Angeles, you don’t get reception. XM-Sirius maintains that they serve the entire 48 states with neatly 100% reception, but despite a recent launch of a new satellite, it’s still a sporadic service that needs help. What’s more annoying is that their tech support still maintains you are getting their satellite radio service even when your device says “no antenna” or “searching for a signal.”

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Complaint #4: For the last three years AT@T has been chasing many of the cable companies and Verizon FIOS in trying to gain a foothold in providing an almost digital TV service in many parts of the country. It’s not as sophisticated or as fast or as clear as FIOS, but in many areas it’s better than traditional cable. AT@T seems to be on the verge of becoming a behemoth in the industry with good service, better pricing deals and slowly but surely, some terrific customer features that the cable companies don’t have.

But now we hear that they increased their subscriber base by promising what they couldn’t deliver. They allegedly offered HDTV service to customers who didn’t have HDTVs and, they didn’t provide true high resolution for those customers with HDTVs.

AT@T wouldn’t return our calls, but one industry insider chalked this up to, not a criminal activity, just a phone company mentality. Seems that AT@T didn’t have enough trained installers and behind the scenes people to actually deliver what they were promising in those very cool and sophisticated ads.

The irony here is that AT@T, still arch rival in phone, Internet and TV services to the New Jersey based Verizon, has been suffering from this type of undelivered promises, in accurate advertising and terrible customer and tech support since it too became a success in the TV service provider industry.

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And, last but not least, let me tell you about my experience a few years ago with a Shark Vacuum, a very highly rated Shark Vacuum. I’m short on apartment storage space so was excited to find this new rechargeable little vacuum that detached in the middle and turned into a hand held version. I was psyched. I bought one and it was great, I saved space, and killed two birds with one stone. I could clean my floors and have a handheld, too. Except that it worked for a day and then it died. Must be a fluke, no? So I went back to the store and exchanged it for a new one. Again, it worked great for about a day and then died. I really really really liked the design, so I gave it one more try. The third one also died after a day. What, I can’t help but wonder is, what exactly did the rating services rate? Did they only use it for a day and didn’t care if it held a charge for more than that? Who knows, I gave up.

The moral of this spiral of bad technological news? Catch these companies when they are hot but before they get good ratings.