Dear Motorola Mobility,
You may not know me….of course I’m one amongst your million customers who are patrons of Motorola handsets.
You and I have paved a long journey. I, for one, am not a brand new client of Motorola – our journey goes way back and that was even before your sterling acquisition by Google Inc.
I have held several models of Moto handsets and right until this day all I felt was proud to own them.
Right until this day!
I made a choice. Just a couple of months back…even if that meant shelling out a huge sum of money for something that I wished to continue to follow. I chose to patronize Motorola yet again and invested in Moto G (Gen 1).
I’m sure given its sterling performance in India and the number of orders that your official vendor website, Flipkart books everyday, I would expect that my customers are 100% satisfied. Except perhaps a few unsatisfied ones, whom you believe are being well taken care of by your company!
I unfortunately belong the latter!
A sudden torrential rain drenched my phone. According to the tele ads and strong claims of Moto, my handset ideally should have been immune to this – shock proof and water proof as you always claim!
My phone immediately malfunctioned and I knew this had to be addressed at an authorized centre. I spoke and confirmed from two of your Moto Care execs – Kartik and Pole, who assured me that my phone would be repaired under the warranty.
There is ONE centre in Pune. Just one! I drove down to find a crowd of disgruntled customers just like myself queuing up to the attendants tables, either quarreling for token numbers or redressing their problems.
I looked at them, with half a mind to walk out right that instant! However, I chose the token and decided to wait. A BIG Mistake! And you’ll know why as you read on..
Have you tried waiting for few hours, dear team? If you haven’t, I would advise you try that at your authorized service centre in Pune. I waited two hours just for my turn to arrive. With a total staff strength of 3, what sort of “service” the company expects to deliver to a thousand customers everyday, I fail to fathom!
But here’s where it gets interesting! My turn arrives, I pick up my handset and receipt and approach the desk where a lady with an expression of utmost snob and disgust, asks me my details, which by the way she couldn’t even spell or type on to her computer!
Her cool response to my problem is to fork out a token amount, just to open and inspect my handset, (may I still remind you that my handset is under warranty) and based on the level of damage would charge me another bomb (upto 70% of the retail price)!
I was stunned at her and what’s her attitude? Tosses my phone and invoice, tells me to take it up with Flipkart (who’s by the way your ONLY authorized online VENDOR in India) or call up the customer care again and ask them to tell me a service center who would be willing to do it at much less!
And if I do neither….walk out the door!
Motorola Mobility, it was taking me every ounce of patience to not lost my temper. I told her that I was willing to pay her the token amount so I understand the extent of damage. I hand her the money for which she does not have change and she tells me to leave the line, find the change myself and return.
A person, hardly educated from the looks of it, with an attitude that absolutely stinks, is telling YOUR customers to obey or get lost!
I would have loved to snap her pic and those of several other wary customers, she was ill-treating and send it to press. But the Moto handset I have was most unfortunately, the only handset I had at the time!
I was appalled and literally flung the receipts on her face, snatched my handset and walked out! And right at that moment I strongly believed that I made a BIG mistake of purchasing a Motorola handset this time!
Your claims of being top-notch, just went into dust for me and I know for sure that I will strongly advise anyone against buying your product anymore.
Now that you are up to speed with my problem, here are a few things I’d expect you to answer-
1. Give me strong explanation why, despite product specifications, did my phone malfunction after getting wet in the rain.
2. Why am I being charged money for a handset under warranty, when clearly confirmed by Motorola Mobility that I was eligible to get my phone repaired under the same?
3. Why have you till date not taken notice of the level of after-sales at your service centres and beyond that employed resources who are incapable of handling even themselves – let alone your unfortunate customers?
I come from the service industry too. There’s one really big word that drives this industry. It’s CO-OPERATION. It has been zero in case of Motorola this time.
I hope you take this very seriously! Because I’m not only afflicted by a damaged product but had to face humiliation to even set it right!
This is just the plight one customer who has braved to publish her plight on social media. Take a stock of several others like me, who are silenced & forced to fork out huge sums of money, because they do not question it like I do.
Yours Sincerely,
Sharada Sridhar
Vestigia Flammae 