Vent: Kobo customer service

Esqui

Time for a vent, one of many I could get off my chest, but this is more likely to affect people here! If anyone has a Kobo, I hope to the Gods you never have a problem with it. This isn't even mine - I booked it for a customer, and they have been awful since day one.



Back in February, a customer brought in a faulty Kobo tablet, which wasn't charging (I thought it was user damage, but that's by-the-by). I call up Kobo, they want the customer's Kobo account details, which is fine. They want me to respond to an email with some details and photos of the tablet. I tell them that they should send any emails to me though, and give them my email address ([EMAIL="xxxx@outlook.com"]xxxx@outlook.com[/EMAIL]).

A couple of days pass, no email. I chase them up. They have managed to get my email address wrong, because they appear to have never heard of Outlook, and sent the email to [EMAIL="xxxx@outlike.com"]xxxx@outlike.com[/EMAIL]. I correct them and await the email. Three days later, nothing. I call again. They managed to get the email wrong again, so I stay on the phone until I have received it. It arrives. I reply with pictures and the required information.

A week passes with no reply. I chase again. They 'forgot' to send an email, which tells me I need to send the tablet - at our cost - to the Netherlands, and a new one will be sent back within three weeks. So off it goes.

Two weeks pass, the customer is getting rather annoyed (understandably), so we refund the money to her and wait for it to come back as our stock. I forgot about it for a while after that - it's not a customer repair, so not as urgent. Until today, when I ring them up.

They first want the customer's email address, which I have to spell out one letter at a time - 'S as in Sierra, M as in Mother...'. Even doing this, the agent still manages to get it wrong three times. Once that hurdle has passed, I ask where the tablet is. It should have been sent to me a month ago. She gives me a FedEx tracking number, which tells me the parcel was signed for in Southern France. "That's not been delivered to us" I say (putting my Captain Obvious hat on), and am met with silence, as such a question clearly is not on the script. After a rather long time on hold, she tells me that it will be investigated and I will get an email. "Wait!", I say, "Make sure it goes to my email address and not the one on the Kobo account."


"Yes, that's O as in Oscar, U as in Uniform, T as in Tango, L as in Lima, O as in Oscar, O as in Oscar, K as in Kilo.... dot com."
"OK, I have O for Oscar, U for Uniform, C for Charlie...."


Save me!

bluebeary

i bought my first kobo last october, just the kobo touch and had trouble with uploading a book i had bought to it so i contacted customer service who were very helpful and gave me a step by step guide as to how to solve my problem, i had downloaded the wrong format and this problem was solved within the hour

i cant remember what the other problem i had was but this was also resolved very quickly and i was very happy with their customer service and assistance

which is why i chose kobo again when i bought my arc in february, safe in the knowledge that if i had any problems they wouldnt be problems for long, so far no problems and im very happy with both my kobo touch and my kobo arc

sorry to hear about your experiences though

pmduk

Thank goodness I chose a kindle. Amazon's customer service has been brilliant in my experience.

iclayt

I've had my Kobo Mini for precisely a year today (they've just emailed me a happy anniversary discount code) and I was just thinking to myself "I'm glad it's still working!". Obviously now I've read this I've surely jinxed it.