I have had terrible experience with HTC customer service for the Nexus One. I agree with the comment about subsidizing phones - what this whole Google experiment has proven is that subsidizing phones a (carrier-sold phones) is actually a great system! Cheaper phones (for the consumer), much better service, protection from a company like T-Mobile that actually cares about service. HTC's system is broken.
I had to call three times to get a fedex shipping label that they said they would email. I never got any emails from Fedex, this is 5 days later. I dropped the phone off myself, luckily I live in Houston. Since then they diagnosed my phone and sent me an email that directed me to a website where I could approve or reject the repair. I approved it but the website is BROKEN and doesn't let you submit. I called about 6 times since then, they say they'll investigate and escalate and call me back. Nothing happens. Wait times are ridiculous while they supposedly try to talk to a supervisor (although they answer the phone IMMEDIATELY). The reps are actually quite friendly but the system is broken.
So then one rep says he'll process it manually - I gave him my credit card and he said he'd charge it and a supervisor would push the request through. The website STILL says it's waiting for me to approve repairs. I called again this morning and the guy knew nothing about it. He said they that the phone was in diagnostics waiting for quotation. WTF ?! Then he apologized and said he couldn't help me - he had "no answers". He said he was frustrated too. I think the reps know that HTC's systems are dysfunctional, but they can't do anything about it.
This Google phone experiment is a certifiable disaster. You buy the phone from Google but it ships from HTC and you have to return it to HTC to get credited from Google? And HTC's system is dysfunctional? I am trying to PAY for a repair - can you imagine trying to get a warranty issue resolved ?!
Google's venture into selling phones is a failure. They need to retreat while they still have some dignity. The idea is flawed - selling unlocked phones through their website. You can't even use this phone properly on any other US carrier besides T-Mobile! It would have made much more sense to sell this phone through the traditional channels. Or perhaps if they had taken ownership of the phone like Amazon-Kindle or Apple-Iphone, and taken responsibility for sales-warranty-returns, it would have been much more effective. They are simply brokering the sale of a phone on behalf of HTC, whose customer service is a disaster. FAIL.
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