The BIG Kahuna

Wow, sometimes you just have to scratch your head and?say huh? Have you seen the new ASK.com commercials starring Kato Kaelin? That’s right I said featuring Kato Kaelin. Should I say it again? Are you asking yourself why? Why out of all the potential losers to choose from would you take him? Does the word branding mean anything to you? Fine, let’s assume that ASK.com’s marketing Guru’s were sitting at a table and brainstorming. Hmmm, who do we want as one of the faces of our organization, the VP of Marketing asks the team? Hey I got it! How about Kato Kaelin? After all?his only claim to fame? was being a dumb witness loser in one of, if not the most publicized murder cases in US history. Yea, let’s make him our feature…whoop-dee-do!?

ASK.com, are you kidding me? Really…Kato Kaelin? Does the words brand image ring a bell? Listen if I’m choosing a person to search for while representing your service why not take a more positive person? Even Elvis would have fit the bill and he’s dead. Or maybe not, maybe he’s in Philly??So ASK.com, you go right to the Branding Blunders category of our branding blog. Now you know why hardly anyone uses you as their first choice for?a Search Engine.

Last night I watched an episode of “The Loop”, a TV show on Fox. It’s one of my favorites, very witty and funny. During the episode one of the main characters had to call his credit card company. The show portrayed a split screen with his call being transferred to India where the credit card company has outsourced its apparent “customer service”. A woman answered the phone with a very thick accent (ah, because she’s from India) and said her name was “Sally Malloy”, can I help you. The woman then proceeded to use “catch phrases” such as awesome and dynamite all the while not understanding a word the man was saying. Very funny. Sad but true is all I have to say unfortunately.

Segway to Magellan GPS and my own personal experience with them. Last December 2006 I sent my Magellan Roadmate GPS unit in for repair. I paid the repair fee in advance in November 2006 of $150. Come May 2007 I still don’t have my paid for unit returned. Where is my unit I ask myself? So I call “customer service” at Magellan GPS. That’s where the nightmare begins. I was transferred to a company in India who takes care of Magellan’s “customer service” and “tech support” (how thoughtful to their customers huh, sending customers who paid for their product to people that barely speak English). A man with a thick accent answers the phone and after 4 tries finally spells his name to me: Derrick Emanuel. Okay, I ask “Derrick” where my unit is. He puts me on hold for 15 minutes…how sweet, thanks big D!

Finally he comes back and through much interpretation tells me that they have it and someone will call me back within 24 hours. At least that’s what I got out of it, understanding that he could barely understand me and me him (Magellan GPS obviously cares deeply of their customers huh). No one ever calls me back (big surprise huh, the guy barely spoke English).

I call back, speak to another barely speaking English “customer service” person and finally I ask for a supervisor. My supervisor comes to the phone after making me wait 20 minutes on hold. His name is “George Jordan” or Jordan George, who knows I could barely understand a word he said. He tells me that my unit is there and will be fixed. I say, no way Jose (I don’t think he got it) I want a new unit overnighted pronto (again, not getting it). The solution Mr. Vite (Oh, that’s me Mr. White), Vee vill be sending to you a refurbished GPS unit for free of charge. I ask, why would I want someone else’s crappy unit? Send me a new one and refund my $150, I ask. I mean really, you’ve had my Magellan GPS unit for 7 months. That’s it, take it or leave it.

I call Corporate in good ole US of A. I Ask for customer service and they transfer me where? India. I hang up, and call back. I want to speak to someone who is living in the United States in customer service I ask! Then the real fun begins… I get Robert Davis(rdavis@magellangps.com), “Quality Assurance” something or another. I explain the situation to him thinking….alas, I’m saved. Nope, sorry….we’re going to make this harder on you Mr. White (at least I understood that).?

First I have to prove I mailed my unit there (even though India confirmed having it). Fine I say, I expect poor service like this so I save my UPS receipts. I’ll show you, and I fax it over. Two days go by and nothing (nice service huh). Finally I call him and he says we’re shipping out the refurbished unit and that’s it.??

To recap: Magellan GPS keeps my unit and the $150 I paid to fix?my original unit?and sends me a refurbished unit while making me wait 7 months.?

The Fix: Listen up all you companies that care about your branding this is important. When a consumer buys a product?in good faith treat them like you appreciate it. In this case I bought my device from a retailer and had a good experience. But when I had to deal with Magellan GPS I had a very poor experience. It’s obvious that Magellan cares more about their bottom line than building a positive brand image. Why else would a company outsource its customer service to India? Customer service in my case was the first touch point I had with the company, like most consumers.

How sad that Magellan values its customers so little.

Secondly, empower your customer service to make and say good choices. Teach them to be empathetic to your number one assest (that’s the customer). In this case they should have said:

Mr. White it’s unacceptable that we’ve had your unit for over 6 months, that’s not the norm. We take full responsibility for this. I can’t image how frustrated you must feel.?

That’s a better way to handle it not this (this was emailed to me from Robert Davis and is a quote):

“Mr. White, Magellan apologizes for the inconvenience. As per our conversation today, Magellan will replace your RoadMate 700 with a RoadMate 2200T. Magellan will attempt to ship the replacement today by UPS NEXTDAY Shipping.”

Thank You and have a Great Day,?

Robert Davis, Quality Assurance Engineer

rdavis@magellangps.com (email him if you want)

How cold and?uncaring huh?

No responsibility, no empathy, no nothing!

Lastly, I paid $1300 for my device new 3 years ago and they shipped me a refurbished unit that costs $399 of which I paid $150 for because they never refunded my money to fix the old one.

Magellan does not care about you so why care about them?

I just bought my wife a new GPS unit for her car from Garmin!

In conclusion: If you want to speak to someone in India about your Magellan GPS unit and be treated like a number buy a Magellan product, otherwise avoid them.

Just to add on I found a lot of other complaints on similar subjects, check them out online.

But here are some excerpts:

“I emailed the company twice requesting a Return Authorization and heard nothing back. I then called their toll free tech support line that connected me to a country somewhere in a distant galaxy with people who could not speak English very well (sadly, my native language!) Without speaking Klingon, it took about 45 minutes for the customer non service representative to provide me with an R/A number, and another twenty minutes to spell Fort Worth, TX. I should have known. ”

“I can’t even begin to approach the lack of customer service. I just don’t know where to start. They do not speak English or understand it. Forget English as a second language I think it is more like a 5th or 6th. They offer ZERO customer service support!!! I have no problem with any company using an off-shore call center, but please be certain they can speak and understand English. I spent just about 30 minutes on the phone trying to find out if or when the cradle would be available for shipping. The CSR could not get past why my phone number was not important to the question I was asking…”

“Customer service is terrible! It took two months of phone calls and emails to get an answer from Magellan. One tech support request was never answered. Another was answered with helpful steps to reinitialize the unit, but this failed. In the support answer, Magellan stated that if this does not work ask for authorization to return unit. I asked. No answer. Sent another tech request explaining I needed a return authorization. I got back the same document stating to reinitialize my unit. I called tech support. I could not understand the broken English spoken by tech support. I was transferred to another tech. He said his supervisor would call me back with the return information. He never called back. Call again today (again could barely understand the person’s English) and was told Magellan no longer fixes the Roadmate 760, but would give me a $149 credit toward a model 2000. I did not want a higher priced model. He said could not get credit toward a comparable model. I hung up and went to a store and bought a different brand.”

“It is impossible to get through to customer service to complain about the lack of support. It is very frustrating that this unit has been broken longer than it has been operational. Technical support is from the dark ages. I can’t believe you can’t get through to a live person in Customer Service without being transferred back to technical support in India.”

“Dealing with magellan was a very horrible experience i sent this item back to their service center because of the unit freezing and just showing a blank white screen and they sent me back the unit in exact same shape what a waste of time effort and money customer reps came from india and sometimes rude avoid this product avoid this company”.

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Scott White