Actually, rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll just post the email I just sent Mr Thodey (whose email address is still current in my gmail from our last dealings with Telstra - handy).
Dear Mr Thodey
I write to you out of sheer frustration at my recent customer experience at a Telstra store.
Yesterday at 5.20pm I purchase a prepaid Samsung Galaxy Ace mobile phone from the Pakenham Telstra Store.
This morning I activated the phone, put $50 of credit on it and proceeded to make my first call - at which time it became evident there was a problem with the speaker (The caller could hear me, however I could hear nothing at all).
The phone was not fit for purpose. I put the phone back in the original packaging and returned it to the Pakenham store for a refund/replacement at 3.00pm today. I had yesterday's purchase receipt with me.
And this is was my customer experience:
1. I was advised by store staff that they would not issue a refund until the handset had been sent away to the National Assessment Centre (but they could not tell me how long this would take!). For a phone that is less than 24 hours old that has not been fit for purpose since being removed from the box? That is not an Early Life Failure, that is Dead On Arrival!
2. The store staff tested the phone themselves and confirmed that the speaker was in fact dead and that the phone did not work as advertised. Despite this, they still insisted that the phone be sent away and refused a refund.
Mr Thodey, treating your customers as if they are lying (as the paying customer, that was my perception) is really bad customer service. One staff member even said "it's not like we think you dropped it, but we have to make sure". I was completely gobsmacked at this comment.
3. I then requested a replacement phone of the same type. Again I was met with the same answer - we will not refund you or replace the phone until it's been assessed. Again, the time for assessment was indeterminate.
4. I asked to speak to the Store Manager, who advised me that as soon as I walked out of the shop with the phone, it was always going to be sent away for assessment, even if it had been out of the shop an hour. I posed a question to the Manager - "so you're telling me that EVERY Telstra phone I buy, I need to stand in the store, activate it, charge it, and test EVERY piece of functionality on it before I walk out the store, or it will be sent away for assessment if I come back in an hour with a problem?". Her response was "Yes".
Mr Thodey, I'm sure you can see just how ridiculous and unrealistic that scenario would be in a store situation. And if this IS the case (and Telstra/store policy), customers should be made aware BEFORE they leave the store. Had I known this yesterday, I would have stood in the store and done exactly that - charged the handset, activated the SIM and then tested every single piece of functionality on the phone before I left. I'm sure the staff would have loved that at 5.20pm when the store closes at 5.30pm.
5. To add insult to injury, the store then offered to provide me a loan phone - for a $50 charge!
To say I am an unhappy (long-term) Telstra customer at the moment is an understatement.
The bottom line is I have had a phone for less than 24 hours which is not fit for purpose - it is effectively a $250 paperweight. Telstra have $250 of my money and could provide me with no timeframe as to how long any assessment would take (and indeed whether a refund/replacement would be honoured once assessed!).
I know that you are making great inroads in the customer service arena, however with experiences like this, you have quite a way to go.
Regards
So there you go. That's pretty much it in a nutshell.
Petty bullshit bureaucratic processes and rules, designed around the convenience of Telstra, rather than you know, us, the paying customer.
Actually there has been one change at the Telstra stores since I was last ranting about them on this site - their "clipboards" have gone all high-tech and they now use ipads.
Sorry Telstra, but all the fancy tech in the world isn't going to stop you being the unhelpful, asthmatic behemoth of a service provider you are.
UPDATE: One of our kids works for a supermarket chain which sells Telstra prepaid phones. She works in the area that does the selling/ID checks etc. When she got home from work today I told her what had happened and asked her what her employer does in these situations - "we would have given you a refund or a replacement on the spot and sent the faulty one back!". And this is from an company reselling Telstra devices. So why can't Telstra do this? Am I missing something here?
So there you go. That's pretty much it in a nutshell.
Petty bullshit bureaucratic processes and rules, designed around the convenience of Telstra, rather than you know, us, the paying customer.
Actually there has been one change at the Telstra stores since I was last ranting about them on this site - their "clipboards" have gone all high-tech and they now use ipads.
Sorry Telstra, but all the fancy tech in the world isn't going to stop you being the unhelpful, asthmatic behemoth of a service provider you are.
UPDATE: One of our kids works for a supermarket chain which sells Telstra prepaid phones. She works in the area that does the selling/ID checks etc. When she got home from work today I told her what had happened and asked her what her employer does in these situations - "we would have given you a refund or a replacement on the spot and sent the faulty one back!". And this is from an company reselling Telstra devices. So why can't Telstra do this? Am I missing something here?
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