Last week I referenced Motorola in two posts, concluding with the observation that they, unlike Salesforce, are not a “customer company”. This after their complete fiasco on cyber-Monday with regards to their $150 off promotion for Moto X phones.
One person pointed out to me how their CEO apologized for the events of that day, and their decision to double the number of available phones and offer them on two other days as an example of how they really are a “customer company”.
In all fairness, I agreed that Mr. Woodside’s apology was the right thing to do, and it was appreciated. At first I was less than thrilled by the offer to double the number of devices, as it didn’t seem it would fundamentally change the lottery nature of the offer, and thus potentially offer nothing but more frustration to those who tried to take advantage of the offer on Monday. However, I was very pleased to see that they changed the mechanism of the offer so all you needed to do was sign up for the discount – meaning that those who were aware of the new dates and showed up on time were virtually certain to get a discount voucher – it took about 9 minutes for them to run out.
Did Motorola make that change to make things better or more fair for those who were frustrated Monday, or because it was a necessary technical solution to scaling up to handle the anticipated traffic? I suspect the latter, but I’m willing to offer the benefit of the doubt, as both goals were accomplished.
But, despite this, Motorola is still not a “customer company”. Let me tell you why.
I ordered a phone after receiving the voucher. The next morning I received an Email that my order had been cancelled, with no reason – just a number to call if I wanted to find out why.
I tried their online chat support, but the person there could not help – they had no access to the necessary information.
So I called – it took about 5 minutes to connect me to an agent. It then took the agent about 10 minutes to research the problem – it turned out that the address I specified as the shipping address did not match the billing address, so the order was automatically cancelled. I use one of those mailbox places to receive packages – it’s more secure. Now I’ve seen sites where there were warnings that choosing a different shipping address might delay delivery because it requires additional verification. I’ve seen sites that don’t allow different billing and shipping addresses in some cases. But this is the first time I’ve just seen an order cancelled. Why was there no warning during purchasing? Why was there no reason on the cancellation Email, forcing me to call in?
And what about the discount voucher code? Could it still be reused? It took the agent more time to research that, and then transfer me to the department that could issue me a new code. Except that they couldn’t – they had to open a case that required management approval to issue a new code – and they would call me back within 24 hours. That, of course, did not happen. They called back in 48 hours saying that a case had been escalated to management to request a new code. This did happen, several days later, leaving me just one day to use the code before its expiration date.
This is why Motorola is not a customer company. Their support staff are wonderful people – they were very nice and worked hard to solve my issues. But they clearly are not empowered to make things right, and they don’t have the tools to do so quickly – I was on the phone for over half an hour for what should have been a very simple process.
If they were a customer company, I would have received a call or Email before the order was cancelled explaining the issue and offering me options. If they were a customer company, they would have been able to reopen or replace the order to my home address, or even the mailbox place once I called. If they were a customer company they would have been able to reissue me a discount code on the spot.
You may wonder why I keep harping on this. It’s not because I hate Motorola. On the contrary – my current phone is a Motorola Droid Razr and it is a great phone, and I finally got my hands on a Moto X despite Motorola’s best efforts. And so far, it seems to be as amazing a phone as I was hoping it would be. Motorola is a technology company, and like many, I’m willing to put up with a lot of hassle to get great technology. But I shouldn’t have to. And I hope someone at Motorola will read this and realize that if they want to be competitive with the Apples and Samsungs in the world, they’re going to need more than great technology – they’re going to need to become a customer company as well.