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Struggles with OnePlus Customer Support - A user's tale Jul 28, 2020

B_Wrath , Jul 28, 2020 :

Hello everyone.

I have never created a thread (that I am aware of) and I intended to keep it that way. But the recent dealings with the OnePlus Customer Support has forced me into creating one (and a pretty long one at that. TL;DR at the bottom for the sloths and lazy ones), hoping that I will at least be heard here.

Please note, I am not creating this thread for getting support for my query alone. Recently, I have seen a lot of disgruntled users who have had an horrid time with CS. And it is not restricted to one region. It has been the case across many regions like the threads on the forum indicate.

@Starcommander @Darshan D. @Batman360 these are few guys I know on the forums who are having a similarly horrid time with CS currently.
I see plenty of threads where people are struggling with CS for 3 weeks to get their queries cleared or order status updated. Do mind, they pay enormous amount of money and when they don't get a decent response from CS, how bad they must feel and the loss of trust in the company even before they have the product in their hands?

The funny thing is, I had to think for 10 minutes on where to post this thread. The forums doesn't have any category to discuss about customer support in general. I think it hints slightly towards the importance and commitment OnePlus gives for customer support.

Now let us dig into the tale of my woes (of two parts)

Part 1:
July 23:
With the referral coupon I had (I admit it, shameless twitter spamming), I had ordered a pair of BWZ from the OnePlus site. The delivery date was 29th July. I will receive it before I go back to my work city. The ordering process was quite smooth. (I had to wait at least 3 weeks for them to ship to my location, though that can be attributed to the lockdown rules at my place). The order was placed and kept under review, which is fair.

July 24 - July 26:
Went in a jiffy as I was busy with work (Yes, on Sunday too). Didn't have any time to check the order status.

July 27th, 9:30am:
The woes start here. I saw the order was still "under review". I got a little worried and tried contacting support via the online chat at morning 9am.
I was number 61 with 5 minutes of wait time. I had the time before my meeting at 9:30.
It suddenly changed to 56 with no wait time. I was happy that it was quite quick. I was only let down by the fact that, it would be an indefinite wait. Fed up, I quit the waiting and went to attend my meeting.

July 27th, 10:30am:
Fed up with chat support, I contacted the WhatsApp support (Yes, that's a thing they started in India).
The auto chat bot popped up:


No one connected.

July 27th, 12:30pm:
I contacted the chat support again, to find out how long I have to wait for a representative. Lo and behold, the damn chat bot reset to the square one!


I went through the same pre-recorded stuff only for it to ask me to wait again!


July 27th, 2:00pm:
I again contacted the WhatsApp support. No cookies for guessing what happened next


I got fed up and didn't respond.

I started tagging OnePlus India and OnePlus Support on twitter. You can see the saga in the thread below:
https://twitter.com/B__Wrath/status/1287667910396133376
Didn't have a single response from either of them.

July 27th, 2:25pm:
I again contacted the WhatsApp support, and the damn auto bot started again.


July 27th, 2:54pm: (Interesting bit)
I was on an office call for almost 15 minutes. And that's when my bad luck reared its ugly head.
When I cut the call, I see a notification from OnePlus. Do my eyes deceive me!
I open it, read the content and let out a series of expletives left my mouth, much to the annoyance of my parents. (WFH has its own disadvantages).


Some rep had pinged me while I was on call. Since I didn't respond within 5 minutes (I waited 5 hours, but that's nothing) she ended the chat and the auto bot had the audacity to ask me for a feedback! And the stupid auto response after my outburst made me spew out a few more expletives!

July 27th, 3:10pm:
Whatever I may have been and I am now, but my momma didn't raise a quitter!
I contacted the WhatsApp chat again. Again, no cookies for guessing what happened next.
I am not even going to put up a screenshot. It is getting quite irritating to even see that again.

July 27th, 5:20pm:
Same as above. Same nonsense.

July 27th, 7:10pm:
Same as above. Same auto bot responses and it asked me to wait.

July 27th, 7:14pm: (Interesting bit)
Fed up with the online chat and WhatsApp support, I called the customer support number for India.
I was put on hold for 16 minutes, with a constant drone of "all our representatives are currently busy. You can hold the line or contact us through the website" (As if I didn't try that). I soldiered on.

And on the 16th minute, it started ringing instead of the monotonous tone. I finally had a little bit of hope! But I hadn't learnt from the day's experience.
My hope was shattered to pieces when the stupid feedback IVR started going off and asking me feedback for a support which I never received!

July 27th, 7:41pm: (Interesting bit)
Do my eyes deceive me again! I was on a call, this time on my headset and scrolling through twitter, and I get a WhatsApp message from OnePlus. A representative has texted! Yay!
I cut the call immediately and started chatting with the rep.




So, he claims that the logistics team screwed up and caused a three days delay, when in fact, the order hasn't been confirmed in the first place! Do they think the customers are fools!? Without any understanding of supply chain?

Part 2:
July 28th:
A new day, a #new beginning?
Unfortunately, no. It was the same old nonsense.

The order was still "under review". And I didn't have energy to go through the blood-draining customer support again.

So I changed tactics. I decided to spam all the twitter posts which OnePlus India posts with my twitter rant thread.
And that tactic worked! To some extent. OnePlus Support replied to one of my spam by 12:00pm. I immediately responded to the DM. Yet again, they prove that they are OnePlus support. They responded by 6:30pm asking what my concern was. I gave them the details and I am yet (10:30pm) to get any response from the OnePlus Support on twitter.

July 28th, 10:30pm: (The End of two days of struggle. Or a new beginning for the struggles tomorrow)
1. I didn't get any reasonable response from OnePlus Support twitter handle.
2. The delivery tracking details has not been received as promised by James Skylar.
3. The order is still "under review".

Spoiler: TL;DR

1. Order some stuff from OnePlus website on 23rd July with 29th July as the delivery date.
2. Contacted support from 27th July, 09:00am to 28th July, 07:00pm
3. No fruitful outcome or reply from support.
4. One hellish and stress inducing experience.

Now, below are my questions to the OnePlus Support team:
Let me tag a few people I know are from the Indian Operations team.
@Karthik H. @Lubna S. Can you please give your feedback on the subject?
1. I understand that you have to work with limited staff due to the pandemic and WFH is proving to be difficult, but why does a user have to take such enormous effort in even trying to contact one of the representatives.
2. The automated voice call IVR as well as the WhatsApp chat bot don't have any option for queries about orders. Why is that?
3. What is the standard operating procedure when a person tries to contact support? How long does one wait in the IVR or WhatsApp chat before you issue and apology?
4. Why not have a call back option when the rep is available?
5. Why are the reps blatantly lying to the consumers about order delivery status? Isn't it better to say that we don't know?


Few community staff so that they can give their views (seeing that user is essentially part of the community and should feel part of it)
@Amanda W. @dsmonteiro @Trista W.
1. What do you guys think the community feels like when completely ignored by support? They usually come to the forum and create a lot of threads and we are the ones who tag the poor mods for escalation.
2. How can we ease their pain as a part of the community?
3. Can a customer support person be active on the forums to help with these kind of cases?
4. Can we create a separate category for customer support in the forums to direct all customer grievances regarding orders and customer support?

Few mods whom I torture on regular basis by tagging them on the forums for escalations in such threads:
@SoniaB @pablofg1978 @superplus @camohan
1. What are your views on the threads created here just because CS isn't responding properly? How much does it load up your work further than it already is?
2. How easy or difficult is the escalation process for you?
3. How easy or difficult is it to deal with users when the escalation itself isn't yielding results?

And I request the fellow community experts to chip in and give your views on how CS can be improved.

So, these were my two cents (two hundred cents) on my experience and my expectations from CS.
I do hope this thread isn't ignored like all my attempts to contact CS.

By the way, if anyone knows any CS guys on this forum, please tag them. I want them the most to read this rant thread. (if it wasn't obvious yet)

Edit:
By the way, I really believe OnePlus should stop pretending to be a small company anymore, invest in CS and ramp up the support. Charging $1000 for a phone and not giving a proper support is not sustainable in the long run.

Customer Support is more important than hype marketing!