If you ever think how happy you are because you bought from a company which tells you it's going to replace your device a life time long if it's broken, here's what you get after you complained being held back by endless back and forth messaging with the support, instead of replacing an obviously defect device:
Dear XYZ
My name is Monaliza; I am a Customer Care Advocate with NETGEAR, Inc. I am contacting you regarding your replacement request. I would like to apologize however our request for a product replacement has been denied
As NETGEAR Inc. does not sell products directly, returns are handled directly through the reseller where the product was purchased which is in accordance with our warranty policy:
http://www.netgear.com/about/warranty/
While NETGEAR is unable to provide a refund/upgrade, we are happy to help troubleshoot the product so we could work it out in a way that will meet your needs. Support Experts are available 24/7, and are reachable at the following numbers: 888-NETGEAR (888-638-4327) opt 4. As our Support Experts state, we will happily issue you an RMA to replace your unit.
Yours in Service,
Monaliza A.
Customer Care Advocate
NETGEAR Support
For sure, Monaliz and for sure, handwritten.
Dear Netgear, do you realy think I will ever by a product of your company again? Do you realy think, I will recommend you to anybody in the future? What do thing will I be telling people?
Based on the communication, they request you to contact the support to validate the actual device status, to get an RMA issued. That's not to much asked, isn't it?
Hm, interessting what you're reading from the communication shown above because it's something different than I read which might be related to my latest experience. Nevertheless, for sure would that be legitimate. But that's not the case, they're stalling me by sending me back to the beginning of the whole trip by using a pre-defined message template.
Anyways, see, all the following tells about my personal experiences with Netgear and my personal point of view. I've been using Netgear products for - I don't know - 20 years and every time I've got a problem with one of their devices - and believe me, it's been a lot - I ended up in an endless loop with a so called support agent, which actually most of the times did not have an idea what he/she was talking about, but obviously sending predefined messages/questions. And if you're lucky enough to get your case forwarded to an engineer, you get in contact with someone from - I don't now where - connecting to your system with a remote controll software just to become disconnected once every minute for which the explaination was: Netgear does not provide us with official licenses. So, uhm, what?
Or: If you find a bug in the firmware and you are kind enough to invest the time to report it, you have to go through an endless loop of sending messages back and forth and you have to proof that there is a bug by hook or by crook and even if you provide them a detailed step by step instruction on how to reproduce it, they don't believe you but ask you again for information you've already provided. So you actually have to decompile the firmeware and present the exact line of code where the bug is to them, you get it? Oh, and even better, if you are not the original buyer of a device, they don't even care about you and thereby, about a bug in their product. How can a company not care about a bug in its product because the reporter does not fit into the guiedlines/rules? In my personal opinion that's a disaster - from a company point of view - I'd just call that mismanagement.
Or even better: Everybody running a network would - I guess - agree that a faulty or even failing device can cost you days AND nights and if you do not get the device replaced within a reasonable amount of time, you'll find yourself in a very bad situation. Therefore you decide to trust in the company which promises: Hey, relax, in case of a device failure, we'll replace it until the next business day. So you think: Cool, exactly what I need.
BUT: If you've really got a faulty device and get in contact with the "support" you find yourself in an endless loop of messages being sent forth and back asking you to provide the same information every two to three days and doing everything they can to stall you. I guess for a lot of people that might work to get them to give up. But if you decide to complain about how you're being treated after 10 days from the beginning of the whole odyssey, the above message is the only thing you get back and please don't tell me that this was written and send to me by Monaliza, what a joke.
I've been in contact with a lot of customer support with a lot of companies throughout approx. a quater of a century and I assure you that Netgear’s has always been my worst experiences. It has always been and by now I came to the conclusion that it always will be. That's for sure not the staff's fault but the management, I guess. Whose else should it be than the the one of those defining the processes/rules/policies.
Honestly speaking I do not wonder because this kind of behaviour is so common for US American companies. Sell your product to the customer as fast as possible and try to make it work once it's on the market, forget about the people, we need to pay dividends. Where try means: If there are not a thousands of people facing the same problem, we don't care.
Well, anyways, that's it, I'm done with Netgear, never ever again!
For defect units we file a replacement request online on https://my.netgear.com), few times we're challenged to call a special number for validation by an support engineer, sometimes the replacement unit just show up the next one or two days - absolutely flawless process for many years.
Hanging through some call-in support is a nightmare, being for consumer as well as for business devices. Experienced that - calling from Europe off hours to the English support (because we know local language support isn't available) does often redirect to the consumer waiting queue by default, and it often takes some time after answering some obvious consumer standard Q&A until the reps figure out it's a business product ans attempt to redirect the call. Avoid initial support call-in - not only with Netgear. always use the online resources. What do you expect how much money the manufacturers reserve on a say 250 USD retail smart switch for support calls?
Of course you should not compare with vendors offering high price tag support contracts.
