"The question should be, is it worth trying to do, not can it be done.”
Allard Lowenstein
I recently bought a mobile phone from a retailer with a national presence in India. As a business phone I needed to use voice, sms and email. The sales man sold me a particular phone model with which Blackberry services worked. So I bought it. When I tried to activate Blackberry services, I could not. I discovered that Blackberry did not work on the phone and when I complained to the product company they sent me the following mail.
"This e-mail is in reference to the blackberry support of (XYZ) and (ABC). We appreciate your interest in ALPHA products and services. Please be informed that these phones are technically designed to support the Blackberry application. However, the Blackberry application is currently not available for this model. Also, the network operator does not provide Blackberry services for this phone model. We request you to check the availability of Blackberry application on the following web link….."
Who is at fault, the retail organization, the product company, or me?
The product manufacturer is clearly giving an elusive answer, hiding behind the fact “Yes it will work sometime, but not now”.
The retail company at first said that, it was not their product so they could do very little, about making Blackberry work. When I pressed them that their sales man should have been explicit, the head of telecom products, in this retail company told me that it was my fault for buying such a phone, and that I should have bought a Blackberry if I needed Blackberry services.
The Product Company which makes the phone has a turnover in Excess of $ 25 Billion a year worldwide, and the retail company I bought it from has a group turnover in Excess of $1 Billion in India.
I have mentally debated the question whether it was the Product Company which over hyped its product capability intentionally to its dealers / retailers, or was it the retailer overselling a product. The end result for me as a user is mistrust in both the brands. I feel that there really was no need to hype the product by anyone.
Its not that the phone instrument was bad, but it had been over hyped. Had I been told that mail facilities would work, not blackberry, I may still have bought it, but in the process of overselling; this company is now on my “no no list”.
So was it all about earning more money, increased sales? I am reminded of a quote by Voltaire:
“When it’s a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.”
Allard Lowenstein
I recently bought a mobile phone from a retailer with a national presence in India. As a business phone I needed to use voice, sms and email. The sales man sold me a particular phone model with which Blackberry services worked. So I bought it. When I tried to activate Blackberry services, I could not. I discovered that Blackberry did not work on the phone and when I complained to the product company they sent me the following mail.
"This e-mail is in reference to the blackberry support of (XYZ) and (ABC). We appreciate your interest in ALPHA products and services. Please be informed that these phones are technically designed to support the Blackberry application. However, the Blackberry application is currently not available for this model. Also, the network operator does not provide Blackberry services for this phone model. We request you to check the availability of Blackberry application on the following web link….."
Who is at fault, the retail organization, the product company, or me?
The product manufacturer is clearly giving an elusive answer, hiding behind the fact “Yes it will work sometime, but not now”.
The retail company at first said that, it was not their product so they could do very little, about making Blackberry work. When I pressed them that their sales man should have been explicit, the head of telecom products, in this retail company told me that it was my fault for buying such a phone, and that I should have bought a Blackberry if I needed Blackberry services.
The Product Company which makes the phone has a turnover in Excess of $ 25 Billion a year worldwide, and the retail company I bought it from has a group turnover in Excess of $1 Billion in India.
I have mentally debated the question whether it was the Product Company which over hyped its product capability intentionally to its dealers / retailers, or was it the retailer overselling a product. The end result for me as a user is mistrust in both the brands. I feel that there really was no need to hype the product by anyone.
Its not that the phone instrument was bad, but it had been over hyped. Had I been told that mail facilities would work, not blackberry, I may still have bought it, but in the process of overselling; this company is now on my “no no list”.
So was it all about earning more money, increased sales? I am reminded of a quote by Voltaire:
“When it’s a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.”
2 comments:
It's like saying that you can provide full consultancy services, from identification and detailing of technical solutions to developing cost-benefit analyses for those solutions, but you actually sub-contract both technical and CBA...
Shit happens... And no, people like that do not care about a minor loss in rep.
As long as they still sell their stuff...
And they will probably still sell their stuff.
M
Hmmm, its carelessness on part of the retailer or maybe they were misinformed, but then how can that happen if they are the largest retailer. It's definitely a bigger problem on behalf of the manufacturer...and as far as u the consumer is concerned it's a clear case of cheating...that's what I can say.
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