Microsoft – Yet Another Negative Comment!
Im not one to bitch, moan & complain much. At least I like to think so.. But every man/women has his or hers limit.. and today, The Microsft Corporation crossed that limit line..
My son got an xBox controller for his PC for christmas last year. We don’t own a xBox console, maybe the outcome would have been better if we did, but there are a few games that my son likes to play. These paticular games have PC versions but you need to have the Microsoft Xbox controller to properly play the game on a PC.
After about 6 months of playing, not constantly, maybe once or twice a week for an hour or so, the wireless reciever that plugs into the PC just dies. No more green light. Well that sucks! We do all of the troubleshooting to elimate other possible causes. The PC is fine, the reciever be dead. I do some research on line, and I see that this is not an uncommon problem for the xBox Controllers reciever, and I also read about other peoples horror stories dealing with microsoft regarding this product. (Click Here A Good Summary Article on engadget)
I go out on a limb and decide to call customer support. It takes the usual 9 minutes just to get to a live person, whose english wasn’t so bad. We go through the usual trouble shooting stuff for the next 30 minutes, only to have tech dude tell me the obvious… It’s busted. That’s OK, I know they have thier procedures that they need to follow. There have been a few times in the past that I have called tech support thinking I knew the problem, only to discover that I am, in fact, not Mr. Wizard.
He then puts me on hold for the next 20 minutes, no shit, 20 minutes. He says he needs to discuss the problem with a technical specialist regarding this matter. I think he was hoping that I would just hang up out of frustration. Wrong-O, I have a speaker phone.. I can wait until the battery dies on my phone…
He finally gets back on the line, and begins to give me this loooooong, drawn out explanation of why I’m screwed. He was rambling on & on until I finally had to stop him. I said, “look, I just need a yes or no answer to my question; What you’re telling me is that I spent $60 on a Microsoft product, which broke within a year and Microsoft will not replace it or refund my money”. His answer, which was honest , was “Yes” I could hear the embarrasement in his voice.
The Original Microsoft Team
This is total Nonsense! What kind of customer service/relations is this. A company as large and as solvent as Microsoft, can not refund a few hundred people $60.00 for a defective product? Who is running there customer relations department? $60 would go along way in customer relations.
Example: I had a evga graphics card in my PC. After several years and hundreds if not thousands of hours of use, it crapped out. I registered it when I got it. I called eVga for the hell of it to see if I could salvage it somehow. The warranty was for 5 years.
They replaced it, with no hassle what so ever. I am now a life long eVGA customer. Doesn’t Microsoft get it? Or are they just too big to care? Take a good look at the original Microsoft team. If they knew this was going on it would totally ruin thier high!!
Do you have a story to share about your dealings with Microsoft? Good or Bad we’d love to hear about it!!!!
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Yes, this is nonsense – but on your part, not theirs.
This $60 product comes with a 90 day warranty. You can either choose to acknowledge that and buy it, or take your custom elsewhere. You had the misfortune to have something break out of warranty – it happens, deal with it. Part of the reason why costs are low on electronics is because end users take a risk with short warranties.
You have the option of extending your warranty through most retailers. A two year plan probably would have cost you another $10 and would have replaced the unit – which is sad when you consider how much people complain about extended warranties!
At the end of the day this is much ado about nothing. $60 would go a long way in customer relations, but does nothing for the bottom line – which is why they operate the business. You bought it with a 90 day warranty, it outlasted the warranty period. End of story.
Incidentally – why on Earth do you insist on capitalizing the second letter in brand names? Xbox is spelled thusly, and EVGA is all caps. These aren’t iProducts from Apple.
Graham – Thanks for your response. Much appreciated. Your points are all well taken. The point I was getting at is how the level of customer service can impact a company’s reputation. I think most people would agree with me, warranties aside, when you buy a product you expect it to last longer than a year.