brianzeiler
01-03-2008, 05:38 PM
Please take note of my below experience with Velocity Micro.. I sent them this letter today.
January 3, 2008
Randy Copeland
President & CEO
Velocity Micro, Inc.
7510 Whitepine Road
Richmond, VA 23237
Dear Mr. Copeland,
I am not normally inclined to write negative letters to companies; this letter represents my first such effort. Why start now, you may ask? Simply put, I am so completely awestruck by the deadly combination of poor product quality and laughably arrogant customer support that I feel compelled to document my experience – not just to indulge my urge to complain directly, but rather to serve as a possible Harvard Business Review case study of exactly how to comprehensively frustrate and alienate a customer.
The Background
In June 2006, tired of the big box stores and the oligarchy of PC manufacturers with their pre-cluttered desktops, I conducted research and decided to purchase my custom dual-core Vision PC from Velocity Micro. The reputation for customer service and quality was the deciding factor. Soon I would come to scoff heartily at this mistaken impression.
The Disaster
Let’s move ahead to October 2007. After 16 months of perfect use, my PC boots up with the “blue screen of death” and then, on the next reboot, dies completely. I send my PC to Velocity Micro’s service department, fully aware that the one-year warranty has now elapsed, yet expecting that customer service might be able and willing to help, given the obvious component failure so soon after purchase. “Maybe they’ll waive the labor”, I thought at the time. Yeah, right. Here’s how events unfolded.
The Diagnosis
Joe from tech support explains that the motherboard mysteriously died. He tells me I need a new motherboard. I have had PCs since 1982, going back to my old Apple II+, and I have never experienced motherboard failure in 16 months. Or ever.
The Screwing
Joe then tells me, quite unsympathetically, that the current CPU and RAM have been discontinued, and therefore they won’t fit the new motherboard. So, I have to get a new motherboard, CPU, and RAM. With three hours of labor, the cost comes to $962. All this just 16 months after purchase.
The Jerk
My next conversation was with Joe’s supervisor, David, who became extremely arrogant and argumentative when I suggested that a low-quality defective part had been used in my computer. When a motherboard fails after 16 months of normal use, that is pretty much the empirical definition of poor quality and/or defective. David, however, felt that I should simply overlook this little anomaly and perhaps just laugh it off, and he spared no effort in being as obnoxious as possible. He strongly believed that I should feel satisfied with puking up nearly $1000 just 16 months after buying a $2700 desktop.
The Tormenting
The following week, Joe called me back to tell me that the computer was ready to go. He told me that he saved all the data on my C drive except for 2 GB of data files. I asked what the 2 GB were – what was the associated program, what was the file extension, can you please give me any useful information, and his reply was “Sorry, I forgot to write it down.” I know data recovery isn’t guaranteed, but your tech support could at least remember to jot down important notes like the types of files that can’t be saved.
The Huckabee-Like Grasp of Science
Further annoyed, I contacted Jessica Blackwell, who is endowed with the ironic misnomer of “Director of Customer Care.” We played phone tag for nearly a week. Her first two attempts to return my call came after 6 pm Eastern Time, which is the time zone we both share. I guess all this “customer care” has her pretty swamped. Once we finally spoke, her first suggestion was that the motherboard failure was probably my own fault – I learned that Velocity Micro PC’s are part of an exclusive group of special aristocratic computers whose “delicate genius” is threatened by regular old peasant electricity. Apparently a mysteriously undetected voltage surge was the probable culprit in her wildly speculative mind. Nevermind the fact that my high-end home theater system and 25 years of PC usage have never been victimized by rogue voltage spikes before. And nevermind the fact that I have a $100 surge protector anyway. This pseudoscientific nonsense was almost as absurd as the continued denial that I had obviously been sold a defective motherboard.
More Tormenting
Jessica finally agreed, in a voicemail, to credit me back $125. I returned her call in early December to discuss it with her and left a voicemail since she never picks up the phone, but she has not called me back. I guess she wasn’t serious, or she perhaps had gotten burnt out from all her “customer care”. So, to this day, I have not received the credit.
Conclusion
The $125 credit is quite meaningless on a $962 repair on a computer that was 16 months old and just 4 months out of warranty. One would expect that a company with a good reputation for customer service would regret that a customer had endured this little surprise and make a token effort to do something – pretend to care, maybe waive the labor fee, perhaps actually return phone calls in a timely manner and follow through on promised credits. Not Velocity Micro however. More satisfying to me at this stage would be an admission that the motherboard was defective, that your tech support and “customer care” people are extremely subpar (at best), and that I am fully justified in feeling thoroughly and savagely screwed. Thanks for this learning experience. Hopefully the next custom PC manufacturer will do a better job.
Best wishes on continued success in defrauding customers,
Brian Zeiler
3929 Old Atlanta Station Drive SE
Smyrna, GA 30080
404-xxx-xxx
bdzeiler@xxx.com
Re: Order # 206225, June 7, 2006
Expired Warranty # 816865
Cc: Jessica Blackwell
PC Magazine Editor
PC World Editor
Half a dozen online forums
Everybody I know
January 3, 2008
Randy Copeland
President & CEO
Velocity Micro, Inc.
7510 Whitepine Road
Richmond, VA 23237
Dear Mr. Copeland,
I am not normally inclined to write negative letters to companies; this letter represents my first such effort. Why start now, you may ask? Simply put, I am so completely awestruck by the deadly combination of poor product quality and laughably arrogant customer support that I feel compelled to document my experience – not just to indulge my urge to complain directly, but rather to serve as a possible Harvard Business Review case study of exactly how to comprehensively frustrate and alienate a customer.
The Background
In June 2006, tired of the big box stores and the oligarchy of PC manufacturers with their pre-cluttered desktops, I conducted research and decided to purchase my custom dual-core Vision PC from Velocity Micro. The reputation for customer service and quality was the deciding factor. Soon I would come to scoff heartily at this mistaken impression.
The Disaster
Let’s move ahead to October 2007. After 16 months of perfect use, my PC boots up with the “blue screen of death” and then, on the next reboot, dies completely. I send my PC to Velocity Micro’s service department, fully aware that the one-year warranty has now elapsed, yet expecting that customer service might be able and willing to help, given the obvious component failure so soon after purchase. “Maybe they’ll waive the labor”, I thought at the time. Yeah, right. Here’s how events unfolded.
The Diagnosis
Joe from tech support explains that the motherboard mysteriously died. He tells me I need a new motherboard. I have had PCs since 1982, going back to my old Apple II+, and I have never experienced motherboard failure in 16 months. Or ever.
The Screwing
Joe then tells me, quite unsympathetically, that the current CPU and RAM have been discontinued, and therefore they won’t fit the new motherboard. So, I have to get a new motherboard, CPU, and RAM. With three hours of labor, the cost comes to $962. All this just 16 months after purchase.
The Jerk
My next conversation was with Joe’s supervisor, David, who became extremely arrogant and argumentative when I suggested that a low-quality defective part had been used in my computer. When a motherboard fails after 16 months of normal use, that is pretty much the empirical definition of poor quality and/or defective. David, however, felt that I should simply overlook this little anomaly and perhaps just laugh it off, and he spared no effort in being as obnoxious as possible. He strongly believed that I should feel satisfied with puking up nearly $1000 just 16 months after buying a $2700 desktop.
The Tormenting
The following week, Joe called me back to tell me that the computer was ready to go. He told me that he saved all the data on my C drive except for 2 GB of data files. I asked what the 2 GB were – what was the associated program, what was the file extension, can you please give me any useful information, and his reply was “Sorry, I forgot to write it down.” I know data recovery isn’t guaranteed, but your tech support could at least remember to jot down important notes like the types of files that can’t be saved.
The Huckabee-Like Grasp of Science
Further annoyed, I contacted Jessica Blackwell, who is endowed with the ironic misnomer of “Director of Customer Care.” We played phone tag for nearly a week. Her first two attempts to return my call came after 6 pm Eastern Time, which is the time zone we both share. I guess all this “customer care” has her pretty swamped. Once we finally spoke, her first suggestion was that the motherboard failure was probably my own fault – I learned that Velocity Micro PC’s are part of an exclusive group of special aristocratic computers whose “delicate genius” is threatened by regular old peasant electricity. Apparently a mysteriously undetected voltage surge was the probable culprit in her wildly speculative mind. Nevermind the fact that my high-end home theater system and 25 years of PC usage have never been victimized by rogue voltage spikes before. And nevermind the fact that I have a $100 surge protector anyway. This pseudoscientific nonsense was almost as absurd as the continued denial that I had obviously been sold a defective motherboard.
More Tormenting
Jessica finally agreed, in a voicemail, to credit me back $125. I returned her call in early December to discuss it with her and left a voicemail since she never picks up the phone, but she has not called me back. I guess she wasn’t serious, or she perhaps had gotten burnt out from all her “customer care”. So, to this day, I have not received the credit.
Conclusion
The $125 credit is quite meaningless on a $962 repair on a computer that was 16 months old and just 4 months out of warranty. One would expect that a company with a good reputation for customer service would regret that a customer had endured this little surprise and make a token effort to do something – pretend to care, maybe waive the labor fee, perhaps actually return phone calls in a timely manner and follow through on promised credits. Not Velocity Micro however. More satisfying to me at this stage would be an admission that the motherboard was defective, that your tech support and “customer care” people are extremely subpar (at best), and that I am fully justified in feeling thoroughly and savagely screwed. Thanks for this learning experience. Hopefully the next custom PC manufacturer will do a better job.
Best wishes on continued success in defrauding customers,
Brian Zeiler
3929 Old Atlanta Station Drive SE
Smyrna, GA 30080
404-xxx-xxx
bdzeiler@xxx.com
Re: Order # 206225, June 7, 2006
Expired Warranty # 816865
Cc: Jessica Blackwell
PC Magazine Editor
PC World Editor
Half a dozen online forums
Everybody I know