Open Letter to Avides Media

shayg1971

I recently purchased an In-Car DVD playefrom Avides via Amazon (open box), which turned out to be faulty. While Avides did eventually organize a refund, the whole manner with how they conducted their customer service was lazy/inept at best and contemptuous at worst. To cap it all, when I left detailed (but constructive) feedback at Amazon, with a low rating their response was to trawl for a retraction from me, in a way that demonstrated that no effort was made to understand the feedback, or act upon it for future improvement. Merely a pro-forma effort. So in the spirit of extending the publicity that such an effort deserves, I give you my response to them on their request for retraction. I've been waiting for a month or two for a call back. I wonder where it can be...

Dear Ms. Stuke,

Thank you for your email. It is important to me that the feedback I provide is accurate, allowing other consumers to make informed choices about the suppliers they use in a competitive market. Right now, I entirely stand by the feedback I provided. But it is also important that Avides understands the context in which the feedback was provided in order that you can improve processes and services in future. If Avides customer services is prepared to contact me personally by phone or email to describe how the points I am raising will be addressed in the future, I am prepared to take that as a good faith gesture and revisit the feedback I left. If not, I must regrettably conclude that your follow-up email to me below represents nothing more than a pro-forma effort sent to every customer who provides a low feedback score in an attempt to gain a retraction.

You will observe that the feedback was not provided until the issue had been resolved. So it is not the resolution/non-resolution that is in question, rather the manner in which it was reached. So allow me to outline the context

1) The goods provided were open-box, and I was aware of this. However, with open-box items, I would expect a supplier to make extra special efforts to ensure that the goods were as described, and fully functional. That did not immediately appear to be the case.

2) Despite promptly and accurately following your returns process, there was a problem whereby the return got lost with your shipping handler, or between the handler and yourselves. I understand that this can happen from time to time. But the point where you completely lost my good-will as a customer is when you made your problem my problem. You communicated to me that I would have to wait until you had figured this out. You gave me no indication of a timeline, or a commitment to a date by which you would resolve it or process my refund in any case.

3) I communicated to you that because of the elapsed time, I could no longer accept a replacement (I had to order elsewhere) and would require a refund. Despite this, you later sent me an email enquiring whether I would be interested in selecting another item instead. There was no diligence or attention to detail or empathy therefore. You were demonstrating a keenness to retain my money/your margin over paying attention to my express wish from earlier communication that you process a refund promptly. You introduced a further delay while that exchange took place.

4) One of my emails was comletely ignored late in the process.

5) In the end, you sent me the email below. Again demonstrating no attention to detail, no review of the case is evident. You were in effect asking me to retract feedback because the issue had been resolved with a refund, even though I did not submit the feedback until this stage had already been reached. I.e. there were no new 'facts' to cause me to conclude differently.

In conclusion, I am sure that Avides is a reptuble company, striving for customer satisfaction. My feedback is trasaction-specific, and represents a conclusion reached on the basis of the failings I outline above. So if you can demonstrate to me that this detailed feedback is understood and actionable, I will certainly consider a revision.

Regards

dudara

What resolution have Avides provided, if any?

If this issue is closed and it is now a matter of Customer Service, then I'll move this thread to the Best/Worst Customer Service thread, otherwise, it can stay as is.

shayg1971

Hi Dudara, the issue is closed with a refund. The point of the post was to highlight an attempt to get me to retract honest feedback, as opposed to understanding and acting upon it.

koHd

Fair play shay. Everyday should follow up cases like this. Internet feedback is a powerful thing that has swayed my purchases in the past.

I'd hate to think companies were getting bad feedback removed like that.

dudara

shayg1971 wrote: »

Hi Dudara, the issue is closed with a refund. The point of the post was to highlight an attempt to get me to retract honest feedback, as opposed to understanding and acting upon it.

It's a pity that they didn't seem to take the time to read and understand your comments. Not untypical however.

I'll leave the thread open here.