Customer Service

Let me start off by saying that this is not intended to offend anyone in particular, but it is my personal commentary on customer service.

I own a Jabra bluetooth wireless headset. When I checked my receipt last week it turns out I have owned this headset for a little more than 13 months. That fact becomes important in a minute. Last week while driving down the freeway my headset started beeping at me and cutting out. It turns out the charger was only charging intermittently and the headset was running out of power.

Now a wireless headset is important to me for several reasons, not the least of these being that it is now illegal in California to talk on the phone while driving unless you are using a hands free device. I spend a lot of time in my car and I utilize my drive time to catch up with family and friends as well as return calls to clients and colleagues.

So after determining that my charger was not charging properly and having no luck with either the owner's manual or the online tech support in determining if there was a reset or other means of resolving my problem I called Jabra. The phone was answered by a pleasant sounding young lady with a distinct Indian accent, I have since referred to her as Ms. New Dehli. Insensitive I know but in my experience fairly accurate. The young lady was helpful when I explained my problem. It turns out that my headset is no longer in production, it is "outdated" but, she had the replacement charger in stock and could send it out that day. So for double the actual price, to include shipping charges, she sent out the charger.

The charger arrived today. What Ms. New Dehli failed to discuss with me was the fact that the charger is actually two pieces, the cord and the cradle. I opened the package and plugged the cord into the old cradle with the same result I was having last week. So I called Jabra. Guess whose fault it is that I didn't get a complete charger. Of course, it's my fault. I was told that it wasn't Ms. New Dehli's fault that I had read my manual, and looked online, and did not find anything that listed the cord and cradle as two separate components. I was somehow supposed to know that.

So after raising my objection with Ms. New Hampshire, who assured me Ms. New Dehli works in the same building with her in New Hampshire, I have paid for a new cradle which is being shipped, without shipping charge, today.

Now, in addition to problems with people handling phonecalls, both in technical support and customer service, who do not speak, or understand, English well enough to handle the job I have another issue. My Jabra headset comes with a one year warranty. I purchased my Jabra headset thirteen months ago, it has been out of warranty for barely one month. During the first year I had one issue with the headset which was handeld with a ten minute call to technical support. But now that the warranty has expired I have an issue that can only be resolved by me buying not one, but two separate items which in the original packaging come together.

So, I want to know when did customer service become more about placing orders for new purchases rather than actually addressing and handling a customer's concerns? Any thoughts.