Horrible Customer Service: The Logitech Way
Many of us have bought and returned defective products at some point in our lives. If you are like me, it’s a little annoying, but as long as the return process is simple, it’s no big deal. I mean, one or two bad products are bound to slip through quality control now and then.
About 6 weeks ago, I bought the diNovo Edge from Logitech.com for my home media center Mac Mini. After it arrived, I noticed that one corner had somehow been damaged and that it would not charge more than 10-25%… meaning that I could only use it for maybe an hour.
No problem. I called Logitech to see if they could swap it for a new one, and understandably, I was told that they needed to receive the defective product before they would ship the new one, but then came the first of many things they did wrong. Logitech wanted me to pay for shipping their defective product back.
Only after I explained several times that I had done nothing wrong and that I should not be penalized for their mistake did the customer service rep Mark tell me that he could IM his boss to ask what else could be done. Problem #1: If you do not empower your employees to solve your customers’ problems, they will spend more time servicing you than they spend servicing your customers.
I was finally told that Logitech could arrange for UPS to pick up the item at my office that Friday. “Great,” I thought. I packaged the damaged keyboard and took it to the office Friday only to have UPS come by for some drop offs and tell me they had no pick ups scheduled. I emailed Logitech customer service to express my displeasure and received the response that Mark had simply forgotten to take care of it for me. Strike #2 against Logitech.
Mark apologized and told me that shortly he would send me an eLabel that I could print out, affix to the package, and then drop off at the nearest UPS location. The eLabel never arrived via email. Strike #3 Logitech.
I had to email again to ask for the eLabel and finally received it, printed it, and shipped the damaged keyboard. About one week later, I received an email from Logitech, telling me that my new keyboard had been shipped… And, here comes Logitech’s next big customer service blunder. They shipped it to the wrong address! Mark and his CS colleagues had never bothered to double check the address they had originally shipped the keyboard to. Strike #4 against Logitech.
I emailed again to express my displeasure and say that I would appreciate them changing the address with UPS only to be told by a different CS representative that it would just be best if I called their standard CS line. This is strike #5 against Logitech. If you have already made a mistake, do not compound the problem for your customer by telling him it is up to him to take the next step.
They could have easily called their own shipping department, but they were not willing to do that, so I emailed again to list the hassle I had already been through and say that they had made just about as many mistakes as they could to this point and that I would appreciate them fixing it themselves so that I did not have to waste more of my time. Two days later, nothing had changed, and there was no response.
Finally, I called Logitech and had the first mildly pleasant experience of the entire time. Rashad apologized and told me that he would do his best to get the address changed and would then call me back. About one hour later, Rashad called back to say that they could not change the address with UPS, but that I could try contacting UPS. Now, we’re at strike #6 against Logitech. If you have already made a mistake, do not compound the problem for your customer by telling them it is up to them to take the next step.
The one redeeming factor of the entire experience was that Rashad then told me he would put in an order for another keyboard to go to the correct address and that, if I received two, I could just refuse the second one.
I called UPS only to be told that I could not change the address until a delivery attempt had been made, but that the sender could… which I already knew since I had previously worked for both New Balance and RunningShoes.com, which both ship frequently with UPS. Strike #7. Empower your employees to do everything they can to solve problems, and make sure that they understand that they do not just need to work hard for you, but doubly so for your customers.
I emailed Logitech again. By this time, they still had not given me a direct number for anyone… Just an incident number. I included exactly what UPS told me and UPS’ customer support phone number, which Rashad could have easily gotten directly on UPS’ website.
Now, I wait.
All Logitech needed to do to fix all of these problems was: offer to pay for return shipping upfront, confirm with the original order where they were sending the package, and then call UPS to change the address. Logitech and its Customer Service managers empowered its employees to do none of those things. This is the first item I have ever bought from Logitech, and as a result of this, it will be my last until the company learns that customer service can do just as much for your business as (if not more than) great designs, big marketing campaigns, and tons of sales.
Do you find customer service empowerment slipping away? Have you lost faith in certain companies due to bad experiences like these?
***UPDATE***
I received a response to my last email.
In response to your email regarding UPS correcting the shipping address. We did contact UPS unfortunately we as tech support are not the shipper. We simply place the order to be sent to the shipper/distributor.
We don’t have any type of procedure yet where we can get in contact with our distributor to contact ups and changed the address. We do apologize for the inconvenience.
Looks like using an outside distributor hurts your ability to help your customers.
***UPDATE***
15 hours after posting this blog and about 24 hours after last talking to Logitech, I received a voicemail telling me that they had re-routed the first package sent to the wrong address and that the second did now not need to be shipped. I really appreciate that, and I hope that (from this point forward) everything will go well. I’ll let you all know.
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