Well last week a friend called to tell me that his Touch had fallen from his hand on to a stone & as a result the LCD was now broken. Since he lives in an interior town of Uttranchal, he requested me to drop the phone off at the service centre on my next visit to Delhi & get it fixed for him. I said ok as I had gotten it fixed once earlier under warranty (Screen had gone balnk & was replaced under warranty) & the service centre was on a convenient location for me to go to.
And that is where my headache began. I reached the service centre last Saturday (10.05.08) ans was told that it seems both the screen & the touch control module were broken but could be confirmed only when it had been opened & tested. Never mind, I said, test it but give me a call before replacing anything & obtaining explicit approval for the same. After this I was told that I would have to call their service helpline to obtain a case number (And I'm standing at the service centre mind you) which I did. After being on hold for over 7 mins I was given the case number, I mean does it really take 7 minutes to generate a case number?? Anyway this was a cake walk compared to what happened later.
After completing all these formalities & handing over the phone, I was told hey would call me on Monday/Tuesday & confirm the parts to be replaced & cost of the same & hand me over the phone the day after the approval is given. The turn of events from then on is as below:
Monday: No call. I wait.
Tuesday: No call, I call them up in the evening after waiting all day for the call. The concerned person expresses surprise that I did not get a call but tells me that the phone is under "Testing" and they'll get back to me tomorrow with a final update.
Wednesday: No call all day again so I call them up in the evening. Am told that there is a shortage of LCD screens & the shipment is expected in a day or two. Also given a promise that they'll call me by Friday & give me an update.
Friday: no call again. Surprising, not really?
Today: I call them up again & the concerned technician is out for lunch. The engineer working under him tells me that screens are not yet there. On my asking when they'll be available he says we don't know. I ask him why I've not been given any updates till now, he says we don't know.
When I give him a blasting for this he hands the phone over to his senior who doesn't know anything about the spares & the junior is too scared to talk on the phone (they have a conversation regarding this while I'm on hold & I can hear everything they're saying).
I strictly ask them to transfer the call to their manager a I do not wish to speak to them any longer. Here they start dilly-dallying saying there are lots of managers, who do you want to speak to? I clearly tell them to transfer the call to either their superior or the Customer Service manager. Then they try & transfer the line 3 times, I hold for over 3 minutes. Finally someone else picks up & says the manager (Ms. Farah) is not on her seat. I blast them & ask them to give me her mobile number, which they refuse saying we are not allowed to do that. Finally the man says Sir, I've located her, please call back again on this number, I'll transfer your call (On my asking why he couldn't do it now he said his extension doesn't have the authority or some **** like that). I call back again & now Ms. Farah has gone out for lunch. I'm asked to call back in an hour.
I call back in an hour & now Ms. Farah is in a meeting & the lead technician to who I've been talking to for the past 1 week has still not come back from his lunch after 2 hours have passed. Meanwhile I've called back twice again but no luck, the manager is still in a meeting & after being on hold for over 5 minutes I've been told that technician is also not back.
I mean is this the standard of service they are providing? And this when their volumes are low, think what'll happen if they ever reach Samsung volumes, leave alone Nokia. One would think that since they primarily manufacture & sell devices aimed at the medium to high end market they would also have reasonable levels of service support. But it seems that is not the case.
It's been one full week since I gave them the phone (It's still warranty period mind you even though this incident is not covered) and till date I do not know what the problem with the phone is, how much it'll cost me to get it fixed & when I can get it back.
Would I recommend someone again to buy an HTC device with B&W? No sir, what's the point? From the looks of it I'm gonna have to rely on the grey market only to get this fixed so why should I waste extra money?
Is there anyone with a contact of HTC India who I could forward this to?
P.S. If I don't get a concrete response today, I have half a mind to reach the service centre on Monday morning & giving them a piece of my mind.