Quote:
Originally Posted by koland
More importantly, a tech/digital only company versus what is likely little bigger than a mom-and-pop crafts supply store. Even large distributors in the brick-and-mortar stores often have non-existent CS outside regular business hours and consider a several day turn-around standard.
When I had to call a food store's CS, their standard reply took a week or more (since I has having to check on allergens, long before the current allergen labeling lawsy, that was unacceptable; I wasn't going to purchase and wait a week to see if we could use it, so we switched to a different store that had that info in a database and could tell you while you were in the store, making purchase decisions).
With Kobo, email support is abysmally slow (and often seems not to read what you write). Phone support has limited hours and I seem to only get French speaking reps, which has proven to cause a pretty big language barrier issue. Often I have to just hang up and try again later. For whatever reason, people report that unofficial support via social media or forums works better than their defined support avenues.
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Re: Amazon/Kobo reader support versus publisher support:
It's all the same to me. I'm a customer of both Amazon/Kobo when I use them as a retail shop. If I have a question or a quality issue, it's customer service to me. I can see you putting them in different categories, but when you use both services a lot, it all blends in.
Re: shampoo suppliers: I am not talking about small arts/crafts when I talk about buying shampoo supplies. Some of these places are quite large businesses and supply drums of materials as well as smaller amounts.
One is a wholesaler and they have some of the worst support. The smallest companies I use generally have better support, although Bramble Berry is not small and they have the best support by a huge, huge margin. They aren't really in the shampoo business however (they specialize in soap) so I buy a small amount of related supplies from them.
I think the point I was trying to make is that many, many companies out there have terrible CS and Kobo is no different. They excel in some areas and aren't so great in others. I'm just THRILLED they actually have coupons and am grateful to be able to get some of the books at a discount. It may not be flawless, but it beats the alternative of having no coupons. When it comes to disappearing books, I agree, that is a different story. You paid for the product, you need to be able to access it at all times without having to squeeze through a phone line and shake the person on the other end.