"Wonderful" Kobo Customer Service

[kevorkian]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Sounds like your attitude might be the biggest problem, if you were anywhere near this bad with them. Hint: treating customer service employees with a little more common courtesy and basic respect will get you a lot further. An attitude like you've shown only makes people obstinate.

My thoughts exactly. If you treat service employees like we're idiots, we'll mislead you to spite you.

[guma]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Sounds like your attitude might be the biggest problem, if you were anywhere near this bad with them. Hint: treating customer service employees with a little more common courtesy and basic respect will get you a lot further. An attitude like you've shown only makes people obstinate.

https://www2.mobileread.com/i/smiliesadd1/smack.gif

Yeah ... sure. As a good customer you'd better apologize for buying a flawed product and then causing trouble by contacting customer service. It's always your duty to make the seller happy ....

[unaj41]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

... An attitude like you've shown only makes people obstinate.

Really? You are basically implying that I'm stupid ... Right, first thing I did I sent Kobo an email full of my 'attitude' ... yeah, very smart ...

Of course it was an email chain which only gradually escalated to my, as you so nicely put it, 'attitude' ... only after Kobo repeated their 'not our problem' position couple of times, only then ...
So no disrespect, but I don't agree with your attitude of defending company which is clearly not taking responsibility for product they are selling ...

[nogle]

Originally Posted by unaj41

Really? You are basically implying that I'm stupid ... Right, first thing I did I sent Kobo an email full of my 'attitude' ... yeah, very smart ...

Of course it was an email chain which only gradually escalated to my, as you so nicely put it, 'attitude' ... only after Kobo repeated their 'not our problem' position couple of times, only then ...
So no disrespect, but I don't agree with your attitude of defending company which is clearly not taking responsibility for product they are selling ...

And yet your outcome is diametrically opposite to what several others here have experienced. To what do you attribute this difference?

[unaj41]

Originally Posted by nogle

... diametrically opposite

My email:
I have recently purchased Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell ... I want to report this as a "Defective Product" which I am not satisfied with. There are literally hundreds of missing periods, word spaces, and commas ... several per page, along with many false line breaks ... The reading experience is very much compromised by this poor quality ...
I would like to inquire about Kobo policy in such cases ... Thanks!

Kobo's response:
I have reviewed the email and see that you are stating that in your purchased title " Cloud Atlas" , there are missing punctuation's and spacing issues. As the title is provided to us in a ready to sell format from the publisher, Kobo does not edit the titles in any manner. At this time, we can not offer any form of reimbursement for the purchase, but will contact the publisher to inform them of the editing errors so they can provide us with a corrected version of the book. I apologize for the inconvenience. If you have any further concerns please do not hesitate to contact us for assistance.

Call me a jerk with an attitude ... I guess as guma stated "I should have rather apologize for buying a flawed product and then causing trouble by contacting customer service ... "

[PeterT]

Well.... mine was as follows:

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien appears to have some font issues in Kobo Desktop (and of course the Touch).
Various tims in the book, the font "changes" within the text for no apparent reason.
See for instance the very start of the book:
Here, the first paragraph is in a much smaller type face from the second. This behaviour continues throughout the book.

This was followed by the standard pass to 2nd level support eMail

Hi Peter Thomas,

Thank you for contacting Kobo Customer Care. We’ve escalated your issue to our Tier 2 support team.

The Tier 2 team will try to provide a resolution as soon as possible and will contact you if they require additional information in order to resolve your issue.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
The Kobo Team

then

Hi Peter Thomas,

Thank you for contacting Kobo Customer Care. We’ve escalated your issue to our Tier 2 Devices and Apps support team.

The Tier 2 team will have a look at this and will try to provide a resolution as soon as possible and will contact you if they require additional information in order to resolve your issue.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
The Kobo Team

with a resolution finally of

Hi Peter Thomas,

You're right - this eBook appears to have some formatting issues. We apologize for this inconvenience.

We can’t provide you with an exact date when the eBook will be corrected, as this depends entirely on the publisher, but we’ll do our best to expedite the process.

We’ll also provide you with a store credit for this eBook. Your store credit will be processed shortly and we’ll send a confirmation email as soon as the store credit has been applied to your Kobo account.

Sincerely,
The Kobo Team

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by nogle

And yet your outcome is diametrically opposite to what several others here have experienced. To what do you attribute this difference?

Perhaps the customer care employee.........

[thp1017]

Aieee, and I just suddenly had flashbacks to a 'professional development' course dealing with how we interact with each other

My experience has been that 'this is broken, how are you going to fix it' works a lot less often than 'this is broken, can you do anything to help me?.' I know it seems silly, and for many people, they really don't see the difference. For some of us, however, the former is... not going to make them super inclined to help, especially, if in a case like this, they aren't *required* to...

All that being said, certainly some of it is who you reach in Customer Support, what sort of day they're having, things like that... all the more reason to be polite, friendly, and non-confrontational

[rashkae]

Seems to me a pretty clear case of policy change. A few moths ago it was "We don't know how long it will take to fix, but here's a credit.".. now it's. "we can not offer any form of reimbursement for the purchase."...

This thread is in no way sponsored by Amazon

PS. I would introduce these ... people to Mastercard conflict resolution and whatever consumer protection law applies (which might also influence Kobo policy, where you are buying from...) But that's probably also a good way to get you account nuked, if you still care about that kind of thing.

[unaj41]

Originally Posted by thp1017

... a 'professional development' course dealing with how we interact with each other

I totally agree with you and we can discuss the art of communication and human psychology for hours and days, but the matter of fact is when it comes to the customer service WE SHOULD NOT NEED TO!
This is a clear cut, verifiable case of a faulty product: customer bought a product that is defective so he should be either offer replacement, refund or some kind of a credit ... simple as that.
Even if the customer is the biggest jerk on this planet (totally hypothetically ) with all the attitude you can get he is still entitled to no less then anybody else ...
Kobo is betting on all the fan-boys out there who believes that their favorite company can do no wrong ...

Originally Posted by rashkae

This thread is in no way sponsored by Amazon

Sadly I like Kobo, I never had any issue with the Touch or with Kobo as a company. I like them for standing up to the big guys like Amazon, but this issue just pissed me off mainly because it's so petty and basic ...

[murg]

Originally Posted by unaj41

Kobo's response:
[I][SIZE="1"]I have reviewed the email and see that you are stating that in your purchased title " Cloud Atlas" , there are missing punctuation's and spacing issues. As the title is provided to us in a ready to sell format from the publisher, Kobo does not edit the titles in any manner.

So, Kobo is continuing to sell a product that it knows is defective?

[ottdmk]

I'd be interested to know how the ebook retailing market works. Can Kobo pick & choose from a publisher's catalogue, or are they required to "carry" all of it? I wouldn't be surprised at the latter... allowing pick & choose would be more technically difficult, and as the computing infrastructure wouldn't need to be all that "bigger"...

[unaj41]

Originally Posted by murg

So, Kobo is continuing to sell a product that it knows is defective?

Yup, they have no problem with that - after all, as they said, they are 'only' selling it: the content is not their problem ...
It's like you buy a laptop from a computer store, unpack it at home only to find out that few letter keys are missing from the keyboard .... and the store will tell you they are 'only' selling it: hey, it is made in China ... you can complain there ...

[david_e]

Originally Posted by unaj41

... But what is the worst is how Kobo customer support treats its customers:

When I raised the issue with them they basically told me to F*** OFF, because it is not their fault - it is publishers fault ... they only sell it ...

Originally Posted by unaj41

My email:
I have recently purchased Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell ... I want to report this as a "Defective Product" which I am not satisfied with. There are literally hundreds of missing periods, word spaces, and commas ... several per page, along with many false line breaks ... The reading experience is very much compromised by this poor quality ...
I would like to inquire about Kobo policy in such cases ... Thanks!

Kobo's response:
I have reviewed the email and see that you are stating that in your purchased title " Cloud Atlas" , there are missing punctuation's and spacing issues. As the title is provided to us in a ready to sell format from the publisher, Kobo does not edit the titles in any manner. At this time, we can not offer any form of reimbursement for the purchase, but will contact the publisher to inform them of the editing errors so they can provide us with a corrected version of the book. I apologize for the inconvenience. If you have any further concerns please do not hesitate to contact us for assistance.

Call me a jerk with an attitude ... I guess as guma stated "I should have rather apologize for buying a flawed product and then causing trouble by contacting customer service ... "

You asked them what their policy was and they told you, giving you EXACTLY what you requested. How is that bad customer service?

[unaj41]

Originally Posted by david_e

You asked them what their policy was and they told you, giving you EXACTLY what you requested. How is that bad customer service?

If you don't understand or see what the issue is here then i am sorry, I can't help ... If you agree with Kobo's policy or really think that I only inquired about it then I can't help either ... If you're joking then yes, I agree - this whole thing very much feels like a joke rather then an act of a professional, customer oriented company ...