chillas

Several weeks ago my phone started shutting itself down randomly. Long story short, it turned out that my battery was swollen and dying. I'm still under warranty so I contacted Samsung customer service and made arrangements to return the phone to them for repair.

I shipped it off and several days later got notice that my ticket was closed and the phone was being sent back with a replacement battery.

I got it back Monday evening, opened it up, went to stick the battery in - and it didn't fit. They'd sent the wrong battery back. So I immediately called them. After forty-five minutes and four CSRs, they finally said they'd send me a new battery by second day air. It was late and wouldn't go out that day, but they promised me it would go out the next day, Tuesday.

Tuesday morning came and I got an email notice from Samsung that my battery had been shipped, along with a UPS tracking number. I checked the tracking periodically over the day and it never changed from "a label has been created." I gave it overnight and as of this morning, same thing.

So I called Samsung back. After explaining the situation the first time I was transferred - then disconnected. I called back and after another hour and explaining the situation in varying degrees of detail to four more people, I finally got them to agree to change the shipping to next day air, so I would get it on Thursday as originally promised.

A few minutes ago I got an email with a new UPS tracking number. Shipping method? Second day air.

I am stunned by the sheer institutional incompetence on display here. And I'm completely at my wit's end. It looks like that at this point if I want my phone before I go out of town on Friday I'm going to have to buy a battery myself.

Muqtar

Reach Samsung Executive Customer Service

Try an executive email campaign against the lower level know nothing/care nothing drones. It isn't just Samsung. This level of incompetence permeates nearly every corporate structure.

I targeted some higher level folks at Toys R us a few weeks ago and man do they jump when you hit their media relations folks with a well defined narrative like the one you gave us.

Fight back

chillas

Thanks for that.

By way of update, as of this morning they're saying it went out yesterday Next Day Air, but UPS says it went out this morning. Either way, there was no way I was getting it today.

I called back their regular customer service (hadn't seen your post yet, Muqtar) and after an hour and a half, four CSRs and a supervisor, followed by a call back from a manager, they finally did something. They called around to Sprint stores local to me, made arrangements to pay for a battery and had them hold it for me. My wife just picked it up (I'm stuck at work). And I get to keep the battery that will show up tomorrow.

It's absurd that I had to jump through so many hoops, and it's absurd they had no standard (useful) response for the situation. I'm going to send them some feedback, the bad and the good (the last manager I spoke with).

HDKorp

Yeap, bitching about being wronged does work. I just had a very bad experience with the Verizon Tier 1 peons that read their responses from a book, but got to the right supervisor who fixed the problem, issued a refund and repaired my faith in Verizon's good customer service.