The bad Kobo customer service thread

[Nil Einne]

Originally Posted by Gazella

It was available to me. I always preferred live chat over email when wanting to contact Kobo customer service.

I presume the live chat is only available at certain times of the day, probably some sort of support hours in Canada. That may be why you couldn't find i last time you looked?

[guitarizt]

Originally Posted by buffaloseven

Again, Kobo can be a much more viable option than anywhere in the world that isn't the United States of America. Kobo is a much better option than Amazon even here in Canada.

I think it will all come down to the quality of the store in the long term. Amazon's store is good, but the selection is limited in non-U.S. regions. Kobo's selection is quite good in many non-U.S. regions, but the store...well it could use work.

In a sense, I think it'd be easier for Amazon to expand their international content selection than for Kobo to build a better store (several aspects of coding doesn't seem to be Kobo's strongest suit), but if Kobo was willing to throw a bunch of money at the problem, it could easily be fixed.

But that's all I'll say; I've had my Kobo Glo since October and haven't had a single reason to complian (other than the odd non-critical firmware bug), so I'll show myself out the back door.

It's basically this bold part. There's also some problems you can run into where just directly throwing money at problems that come up won't work if management doesn't know what they're doing. Throwing more money at some problems can be detrimental as well like Daniel Pink says in his TED talk and in his book Drive.

The US market is way more important than the Canadian market. California alone has more people than all of Canada. I'm not hating on Canada. There's a greater chance I move to Vancouver in 4-6 years than that I stay here in the US. I also wish Kobo's customer service and management was better because they made an awesome ereader that's half a year ahead of everything else, but poor customer service and lack of availability in US retail stores are big negatives.

[Nil Einne]

Originally Posted by guitarizt

It's basically this bold part. There's also some problems you can run into where just directly throwing money at problems that come up won't work if management doesn't know what they're doing. Throwing more money at some problems can be detrimental as well like Daniel Pink says in his TED talk and in his book Drive.

The US market is way more important than the Canadian market. California alone has more people than all of Canada. I'm not hating on Canada. There's a greater chance I move to Vancouver in 4-6 years than that I stay here in the US. I also wish Kobo's customer service and management was better because they made an awesome ereader that's half a year ahead of everything else, but poor customer service and lack of availability in US retail stores are big negatives.

But it's not just about the Canadian market. The Kobo generally beats the Kindle in availability in lots of other markets. (And the sort of second class citizen mentality that Amazon has for much of the world outside the US particularly when it comes to the Kindle but also with much of their digital content strategy is off-putting.) And while this is harder to quantify and isn't something I've looked in to that well, the Kobo ebook store also seems to often be as good as if not better than the Kindle in many places besides Canada. In addition, due to the support of ePub, the Kobo often has better support for books from libraries. Frankly, as annoying as it may be to US customers, I'm not that surprised Kobo isn't desperately trying gain a major foot hold in the US market, I think the evidence has shown in many areas that it's not easy and you can often waste a lot of money and get nothing from it for a variety of reasons. (I mean even in the eink reader world, consider B&N.) Heck as a post in another thread has shown, you even have to be careful about who you partner with and where you put your warehouses and offices or else you have to pay sales tax for some states whereas your competitors doing large amounts of business in those states get away scot free and people complain about your prices because of that. Plus according to various reports, eInk ereaders sales are stagnating in the US.) I admit I'm biased since I don't live in the US but all in all, I think there are good reasons why Kobo may not want to spend too much time or money trying to crack the US market and why instead they may want to concentrate and the various other markets out there and with the rise and increasing importance of various markets particularly the developing world, we are seeing ever more of this in many different areas.

[guitarizt]

Kindle sales might be slowing because the market is saturated, but ebook sales for Amazon are growing extremely fast:

After 5 years, eBooks is a multi-billion dollar category for us (Amazon) and growing fast – up approximately 70% last year.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...t-crawled.html

Kobo has improved as well:

Kobo Reports 400% Growth in eBook Sales, 160% Growth in eReader

http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20...th-in-ereader/

It looks like Amazon is screwing over people in at least Canada by making them use Amazon.ca to buy books:

http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20...-kindle-store/

These two charts aren't from the best source, but seem to be inline with what other sources say. It's hard to find actual dollar numbers for ebook sales.





Images from: http://www.karenbaney.com/tags/ebook-market-share/

[John F]

Here is my edited experience...

Live chat on 4/19:

Luis R: Thank you. Let me please have a look at the order number.
Luis R: Yes, I see that you order is still processing.
Luis R: But if you want to know more I can escalate this issue.
John: Why doesn't it show in my Purchase history?
Luis R: Because it's still processing.
Luis R: Is there anything else I can help you with today?
John: So it will show in my history once my card has been charged?
Luis R: Yes, that's right.
Luis R: Is there anything else I can help you with today?
John: No, thank you for your help.
Luis R: Thank you for chatting with Kobo Customer Care. Have a nice day! Sincerely, Chat Team.
Luis R: Hello are you still there? Please disconnect the chat. Thank you.
John: I checked my credit card, and they said my card was charged, so should it show up it my purchase history?
Luis R: What I am going to do is to escalate this issue for you to receive an update of your order.
John: Should I stay on, or disconnect?
Luis R: This usually take within 24-48 business hours. You'll be receiving an e-mail with this response.
John: Ok. Thank you fir your help.
'John' disconnected ('Concluded by End-user').

and then the emails:
4/22 their response:

We are currently processing your order. You will receive a notification by email once the device has been shipped.

Me on 4/22:

I want to know why this doesn't show up in my purchase history at kobo.com

Kobo 4/25:

My apologies for the delayed response. I have taken a look at our system and the order does register.

Can you please confirm that you are logging in with the email address xxx.

My reply 4/25 (with screen captures showing it isn't in my purchase history):

I'm still not seeing my order in my Purchase history. Plus, I got a shipping notice, and when I track the order, it looks like it is going back and forth between Canada and the U.S.

Kobo 4/29:

According to your tracking information (Canada Post: XXX), your order is complete and your Kobo Aura HD has been delivered.

Please let us know if you have not yet received your order and we will investigate the issue for you.

We appreciate your patience in this matter.

Me 4/29:

I'm still not seeing my order in my Purchase history.

Is there anyway to speed up your replies? Could you please escalate this for quicker responses?

Them 4/29:

Your device order will not show up in your purchase history on your Kobo account as the purchase goes through a different system than your eBook purchases.

According to your tracking information (Canada Post: xxx), your order is complete and your Kobo Aura HD has been delivered.

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by John F

Here is my edited experience...

Live chat on 4/19:


and then the emails:
4/22 their response:

Me on 4/22:

Kobo 4/25:

My reply 4/25 (with screen captures showing it isn't in my purchase history):

Kobo 4/29:

Me 4/29:

Them 4/29:

Took them 10 days...

Edit: "has been delievered". Do they mean received or currently being shipped out to you?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Gazella

Took them 10 days...

Edit: "has been delivered". Do they mean received or currently being shipped out to you?

From my experience, for delivery inside Canada, Canada Post changes the status to delivered when the parcel/letter is in the hands of the delivery person who will deliver it to the final destination.

Regards,
David

[John F]

Originally Posted by Gazella

Took them 10 days...

Edit: "has been delievered". Do they mean received or currently being shipped out to you?

They meant received. And I did receive it. I wanted to know why it wasn't showing in my purchase history.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by John F

They meant received. And I did receive it. I wanted to know why it wasn't showing in my purchase history.

From previous posts, it would appear that your purchase history with Kobo is for books, magazines, subscriptions, etc. Neither my Glo nor my Aura show in my purchase history though all my content purchases/downloads do. It would appear that "complete history" is not quite accurate This might date back to when kobo.com and kobobooks.com were separate entities.

Regards,
David

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by guitarizt

Images from: http://www.karenbaney.com/tags/ebook-market-share/

I just find it rather interesting that they separate out iBooks and iTunes purchases and makes you wonder just how/why they separated them instead of just a single Apple item as most others seem to do.

Regards,
David

[Pierre Menard]

Originally Posted by John F

John: Why doesn't it show in my Purchase history?
Luis R: Because it's still processing.
Luis R: Is there anything else I can help you with today?
John: So it will show in my history once my card has been charged?
Luis R: Yes, that's right.

This is what's so frustrating--there's no point even contacting customer service, because the answers they give you are just made-up BS to make you go away. I was told that orders would update overnight and I would have an email with shipment info in the morning. I specifically asked him to repeat it to make sure I was understanding correctly. Guess what I still don't have.

[Dr. Drib]

For all the delays, obfuscations, BS-ing, promises, lies, miscommunications, etc. that we are hearing from Kobo - how many here have not EVENTUALLY received their Aura?

If I order one from Kobo, I can live with getting absolutely NO information in any context or form whatsoever for at least 3 months, which would seem to be a reasonable amount of time, in my opinion, given their level of performance.

I would be satisfied with this amount of time ONLY if I knew I would get the Aura in about 3 months. If it comes before 3 months, then that would be a cause for celebration.

This makes sense, doesn't it? -- Have lowered expectations and things should be fine.



Don

[Pierre Menard]

This is one of those times where I'm honestly not certain if that's sarcasm or insanity

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Pierre Menard

This is one of those times where I'm honestly not certain if that's sarcasm or insanity

I think it's sarcasm, but yet I'm absolutely convinced that if I place an order with that expectation (described above), then how on earth could I ever be dissatisfied?



Don

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Originally Posted by Pierre Menard

This is one of those times where I'm honestly not certain if that's sarcasm or insanity

To be fair, all's well that ends well, amiright?
I mean, there was a little confusion regarding it showing up in your purchase history but the reader arrived after 10 days and only 4 days after the official release date.