So, the kids' XBox 360 gets a 3 lights error, after 18 months ownership. We go through the online diagnostic, this basically means there has been a complete hardware #Fail on the system, and is a well known fault with the earlier XBox and has been since 2007. The Microsoft website tells us:
Solution: Submit a console repair request
Your console is in need of a repair. There are no additional troubleshooting steps. To begin the online repair process, click one of the following links:
- I am a U.S. customer (http://support.xbox.com/support/en/us/nxe/registerdevice.aspx?step=repair)
- I am a customer outside the U.S (http://www.xbox.com/support/)
So, being the dad wot owns it, I go online (from work). And this is when the sh*t starts:
Firstly, to sign in for your repair, you have to sign in with your Live ID. This is your ID as an online XBoX gamer. You don't have a Live ID? - well, to get your machine repaired you need a Live ID. I don't have a live ID, and I can't for the life of me see why I need a Live ID, invent a gamer tag, get a picture for my avatar, and hand over all that other personal data just to get a tin with a known #Fail repaired.
Microsoft says that they are doing this to "enhance my experience" - but as far as I can see all they are doing it to make it hard to get a machine with a manufacturer's fault repaired.
So, I decide to email them instead, I just want the tin, serial No 1234567890, address 1 Broadstuff Towers, fixed after all. That what I do with PCs when they fail. I duly find the the email system, write the email, and get the promise that I will hear in 48 hours. 24 hours later I get the response:
Kindly note that we have received your inquiry, we would like to inform you that the only ways to create repair order are through our web site or through our agents on our support line. So, if you it is not possible to create it online, please give us a call on our support line and we will be more than happy to assist you.
Keep in mind, dear reader, that this is the dreaded "3 Ring " fault - a well known design fault on XBox's, akin to the sort of thing that forces Toyota Pious recalls etc. It is not an exotic hardware problem. Nor is this a build to order supercomputer, its a bog standard game console.
Anyway, the email suggests I call Customer Service (at my cost of course, if you use a mobile which I have to do as I'm doing this at lunch time on a client site).
Well!
The ACD system leads me through a series of steps, essentially it keeps on trying to get me to go back to the website and log on. I doggedly hang on till I get to an agent, after 1 dropped call, and a lot of frustration with the voice (un)recognition system.
The agent wants me to do a diagnostic first, as described on the website. I tell him the kids did that, thats why I'm emailing/calling etc. (Is it unreasonable to want a process that can handle a paying parent phoning from work?)
The next gambit is to get me to to log in on the website and do it all that way. I say the reason I am calling is that I am not an XBox Live gamer, don't want to be an XBox Live gamer - thats the kids' schtick, I just want my sodding tin, with a #factory fault #fail, Serial No 123456789, fixed Now! Please. (I say Please because I'm still being polite)
Then we have a discussion about whether the XBox is with me at the time, can we run some tests. At this point my politeness becomes extreme (I do that when I'm cross) as it becomes clear they are just trying to avoid getting my tin in for a repair. I point out that we know what the problem is, they know what the problem is as its common and featured on their own help sites, and I just want the bloody box fixed without all this crap.
Silence
Then, after a delay for backroom conflab, they finally agree to take it back and we agree to hand it back, and go through it all. It will cost £100, they say, as it is out of warranty and because I haven't logged in on the website, and can't therefore write down the fault, and can't do the diagnostic online there and then and answer in detail some questions about power lights etc (I can't promise that its 3, not 4 lights that go on, and that the power light is green, not orange etc), they seem to want to treat it as a "daft customer caused error". In essence, its my system's fault, my system is out of warranty, if I want it fixed, I need to pay to fix it.
Thoughts of irreparable psychic damage to kids if I don't return with a "fixed XBox" story that evening fills my guilty conscience - besides, I have a conference call in 10 minutes, its taken nearly an hour to get to this stage so I agree, and the credit card number is duly handed over.
Conference call over, I am thrown back into work and that takes over my day - and so today, 24 hours later, I am closing down the XBox website tabs when something catches my eye - a Wikipedia entry, from 2007, saying that:
On July 5, 2007, the Vice-President of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business division published an open letter recognizing the console's problems, as well as announcing a three-year warranty extension for every Xbox 360 console that experiences the "general hardware failure" indicated by three flashing red LEDs on the console.
What! A 3 Year warranty for this fault. Waiddaminit - I have had to hand over £100 to get it fixed and Microsoft offered a 3 year warranty 3 years ago! And my machine is only 18 months old. Where on the Microsoft site does it say this? (I still can't find it...)
And so, dear reader, I am back on the phone service, trying to get my £100 back. Will keep you updated. Watch this space! (Update - phoned up customer service - I read that if you just say "agent" to the ACD, it goes straight to the call centre, which worked). The rep said yes, it is a 3 year warranty and then disappeared for various periods as they conflabbed as to what to do at each twist and turn of the complexity of all this. Result - cancel original works order, set up new one, refund money, time taken - 1 hour 04 minutes - money to be paid within 30 days (hold on to that money for a month for the interest, why dont you....).
But is this any way to "enhance my experience" via Customer Service? It created total frustration as it is:
- clearly designed to create roadblocks to getting things sorted, I had to hang on to teh phone for an hour twice
- designed to extract as much unnecessary customer data in the process, and probably to bump up reported XBox LIVE users
- attempts to extract £100 repair fees unless you are switched on and know what's going on. How many non-Geek parents have been nailed like this - the guys at the local game shop said lots of parents choose to buy a new tin (c £130) rather than shell out £100 for a repair, so clearly its not just me who took awhile to work out its a free repair - in fact seems like many never do
Surely, if one wanted to delight one's customers, you would have a big webpage, easy to get to, with a "Hey, we have a manufacturer's fault, it works like this, we've extended the warranty to 3 years and here is a fast track to getting it fixed" or somesuch.
Surely?
This is a product design fault, remember. Do they think the labyrinthine support process they have implemented is designed to make me a faithful XBox customer? To shout about my delight of how they sorted it out from the rooftops, and enthuse others? If so, let me tell Microsoft this:
- No way are we ever buying another Microsoft Game console - ever! And as for any other consumer product - forget about it..... (I contrast this to our Nintendo and Sony devices which have survived all sorts of ignominies for far longer)
- I am blogging it, here - we get nearly a million hits a month on this blog, so that's the impact of p*ssing this customer off.
- It reduces my willingness to use other Microsoft PC products - the same Dad who is frustrated with this process for avoiding repairing his kids' game console also owns a load of PCs professionally and domestically, and advises clients on IT architectures.
To be fair, Microsoft business support is better than consumer support, but that just increases the irritation if anything.
Microsoft isn't the only one to do this, of course - don't these companies get the interconnected knock ons that the same person looking for support here is a customer for future purchases? Why do companies do this?
An
update from Nic Butler sheds some light:
"...your experience is 100% opposite to mine. I had the problem (18mnths) and in the same day I got the paper work in to get it fixed.
heh, well I did use my live account via the web filled out the details made 1 10min call and it was all in progress."
It seems therefore that the only repair use case is a gamer, with Live ID, sorting it out with console in front of them. A non gaming parent sorting it out from work is bad news. Here is what we don't understand though - from the Twitter conversation:
- @edent: why didn't you just take it back to the shop & get them to fix it under SOGA?
- @loudmouthman: my PS3 experience was even better. GAME just swapped it out and gave me a 80g in place of my 40gb ! So I was even happier.
Well, we did take it back to the store initially (Game as it happens) who said that it was out of the 12 month warranty so we had to go direct to Microsoft. As Nic notes, service from a retailer is much better, so given that Microsoft had already extended warranty to 3 years for this fault, why not let the retailers handle it and delight the customer?
