What's wrong with Kobo

[mr_nihilism]

^
Probably no expectation. On that note, has anybody ever been successful in having Kobo acquire a title that was brought to their attention in needing to be added to their store?

[paola]

Originally Posted by Pookeysgirl

Bold mine. Not sure if this happened to you recently but you can very easily return an ebook through your Manage My Kindle page within 7 days of purchasing a book. Also when dealing with customer service from ANY company, it's better to call, not email.

Amazons customer service is excellent IMO, but only if you call.

this is good to know, as I did not know this was a possibility - but anyway it would not apply to me as i started reading the book a couple of weeks after buying it: but will keep it in mind for the future, thanks a lot!

[ottdmk]

On that note, has anybody ever been successful in having Kobo acquire a title that was brought to their attention in needing to be added to their store?

Yes.

I was reading Dave Duncan's The Years of Longdirk series, published by e-reads. Kobo had the first two, but not the third. Sony had the third. I notified Kobo customer care; they said they'd pass on the request.

A few weeks later, Kobo had the third book.

[Willa]

Originally Posted by Pookeysgirl

Was the Kindle out of Warranty? I can't imagine them not replacing your Kindle within the warranty period unless you were at fault for the breakage.

Yes - by a piddling 2 weeks. The representative said that it had 'fried' - his technical term for what had happened and that he wouldn't be happy either. They wanted more money for a refurb with a 3 month warranty and I declined. When I complained that I had bought a leather cover for the Kindle they refunded me for that. Go figure

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by mr_nihilism

Probably no expectation. On that note, has anybody ever been successful in having Kobo acquire a title that was brought to their attention in needing to be added to their store?

Yes. A one off since I don't buy that many books from Kobo but when I was purchasing a fantasy series, they were missing the newest book. I asked about when it would be available and got a response that they expected it to be available within two weeks. It showed up about 10 days later. It's quite probable that it was already in progress and just waiting for the Kobofication to be done.

Regards,
David

[woe]

Originally Posted by david_e

This is where I stopped reading.

Thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by david_e

What expectations should one have in alerting a customer service rep that their web store doesn't have something you're seeking?

I would expect exactly what I would expect from any contact with a customer service rep: for them to read the message, understand what is being communicated, and respond appropriately.

In this case, where the communication was 'book X isn't available through your store although it is everywhere else', an appropriate response might be 'we have a department who handles such issues, and I will pass your message on to them'. Another appropriate (albeit disappointing) response might be 'I'm sorry, but we don't have any mechanism in place to handle such reports so there's nothing we can do'.

'Is there a particular ebook that seems to be causing these issues?' is certainly not an appropriate response, nor is 'what computer and operating system are you using?'.

[pdurrant]

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[david_e]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

Yes.

I was reading Dave Duncan's The Years of Longdirk series, published by e-reads. Kobo had the first two, but not the third. Sony had the third. I notified Kobo customer care; they said they'd pass on the request.

A few weeks later, Kobo had the third book.

Was the unavailable book a new release? I ask because of this...

Originally Posted by DNSB

Yes. A one off since I don't buy that many books from Kobo but when I was purchasing a fantasy series, they were missing the newest book. I asked about when it would be available and got a response that they expected it to be available within two weeks. It showed up about 10 days later. It's quite probable that it was already in progress and just waiting for the Kobofication to be done.

Regards,
David

Also, from personal experience, some titles I've wanted have been available on release date, others have arrived days or weeks later.

[david_e]

Originally Posted by woe

Thanks for sharing.



I would expect exactly what I would expect from any contact with a customer service rep: for them to read the message, understand what is being communicated, and respond appropriately.

In this case, where the communication was 'book X isn't available through your store although it is everywhere else', an appropriate response might be 'we have a department who handles such issues, and I will pass your message on to them'. Another appropriate (albeit disappointing) response might be 'I'm sorry, but we don't have any mechanism in place to handle such reports so there's nothing we can do'.

'Is there a particular ebook that seems to be causing these issues?' is certainly not an appropriate response, nor is 'what computer and operating system are you using?'.

Thank you for answering my question.

Something you might try, that I have had success with in the past, is reaching out to the author via Twitter (or Facebook) and asking them if / when their title will be released through Kobo.

[woe]

It's a 23-year-old backlist title by a major, household name author who's not going to be chatting with me on Twitter.

The problems I've had with Kobo customer care seem to be about 75% them not bothering to actually read my messages
and responding with some inappropriate, irrelevant boilerplate, and about 25% them not being able to do anything about my problem. In this case, after I carefully explained the matter to them again (a waste of my time, and theirs, that absolutely should not have been necessary) they indicated they'd pass my report along to the content acquisition team, which is about the best outcome I could reasonably hope for - but getting there was quite unnecessarily more difficult than it should have been.

Am I being quite unnecessarily masochistic in using email instead of calling them? The thing is, it is somewhat inconvenient for me to find time in my day to spend on the phone; email is vastly more convenient, and it shouldn't be necessary to avoid email to get a customer care rep capable of carrying on a sensible dialogue!

[david_e]

Originally Posted by woe

It's a 23-year-old backlist title by a major, household name author who's not going to be chatting with me on Twitter....

Planchette?

[woe]

Originally Posted by david_e

Planchette?

Not yet, but probably soon. That'll narrow it down...

[ottdmk]

Was the unavailable book a new release? I ask because of this...

No, definitely not. IIRC the e-book had been published about a year before. It's a book they should've had already, and after my request they got it in.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by samhy

For the first point, it will soon be three weeks and I don't even have received the summary email that was supposed to keep me waiting while the question (which was time sensitive) was forwarded to a higher level

So customer care got in touch with me from Canada. They actually sent me the mentioned emails, but I guess my spam filter was too strong for them. Disclaimer: I regularly check the spam folder and there was nothing from Kobo in it.
We sorted things out on the phone and all is fine now, thanks to the very nice person who called me.

Truthfully, I was pissed because of the lack of updates, not because it was taking time. Now that I understand that they've tried to reach me, I don't have any more complaints

By the way, the representative told me she used an Aura HD and found it really great (obviously, she won't say it's bad, but still she seemed genuinely impressed).

[rene233]

Ditto on the customer care...terrible. I am still waiting to hear from them on books purchased that disappeared because of a forced restart which popped up on my screen.