HTC One M8 rant and general public confusion

[GSOgymrat]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

I think the customer probably had no idea what you were talking about when you were describing the phone and was probably embarrassed and defensive when he had to bring it back. The fact that he liked the pretty colors and wanted "the one with Google hangouts and Gmail" implies he didn't know much about phones. I don't work in tech but I have explained to one coworker how to view a picture she took with her iPhone and explained to another coworker how to listen to music on her iPhone, and these are people in their thirties with masters degrees. I once talked to a clerk who couldn't seem to understand, after several explanations, that my 1520 was neither an Android phone nor an iPhone. He was trying to convince me that Windows was only on computers and I was mistaken about my phone.

 

[Scouseman]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

The guy is a tool. he obviously didn't know the difference between the OS's. As someone who works in retail I feel your pain, and it is always "you" who gets the blame. Even if the phones are next teach other, how can he not tell the difference? And saying it's inferior due to lack of Android market is just ignorance. You told him it was a Windows device. I think this probably sums up a lot of the Android users, just app junkies.

 

[Scouseman]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

I think the customer probably had no idea what you were talking about when you were describing the phone and was probably embarrassed and defensive when he had to bring it back. The fact that he liked the pretty colors and wanted "the one with Google hangouts and Gmail" implies he didn't know much about phones. I don't work in tech but I have explained to one coworker how to view a picture she took with her iPhone and explained to another coworker how to listen to music on her iPhone, and these are people in their thirties with masters degrees. I once talked to a clerk who couldn't seem to understand, after several explanations, that my 1520 was neither an Android phone nor an iPhone. He was trying to convince me that Windows was only on computers and I was mistaken about my phone.

Wow, that's hilarious. He's probably an iPhone user

 

[deejohdumb]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

Try explaining Windows 10 to that guy. I'm sure if you record his confusion that he might be a YouTube sensation.

 

[undisputed n00b]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

I think Microsoft wants this confusion to happen because then people would be accidentally buying Windows Phones which would cause Microsoft's market share to rise. Remember they tried to get HTC to offer both WP and Android on their phones, but Google stopped it. So we now have 2 phones exactly the same but with different OSes.

 

[Adrynalyne]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

I think Microsoft wants this confusion to happen because then people would be accidentally buying Windows Phones which would cause Microsoft's market share to rise. Remember they tried to get HTC to offer both WP and Android on their phones, but Google stopped it. So we now have 2 phones exactly the same but with different OSes.

There is no logic in this theory. Market share cannot rise if phones are returned.

 

[TechFreak1]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

Well, well I can tell you exactly what happened:
1) Goes home and shows his new phone to his friends & family all happy 'n proud.

2) These know-it-all ostriches tell him it is a knock off and a fake as they never heard of windows phone.

3) He comes back, tail between his legs trying to get a refund & rebate all because he doesn't have the heart (or the balls) to stand out from the flock sheep :winktongue:.

Sadly, with face to face sales there are no recording or documentation that you had such a conversation and if you were to say "our conversation is going to be recorded for training & safety reasons", pulled out a recording device, the customer is either going to walk straight out the door or will not openly engage you in conversation.

 

[Karthik Naik]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

the lack of consumers knowledge of phones these days is shocking
just yesterday my friend who had issues with whatsapp bugs on his iphone 5S(freezes etc) assumed the iphone 6 wont have this issue because apple says its 2X faster than 5S
another friend of mine saw i had a Lumia 720 and asked me why i bought it when Nokia has shut down now(he thought nokia shut down and not sold to microsoft)
I think people will one day get over blindly buying phones etc just because of someone elses opinion and will buy whichever they like be it android,WP,ios or BB10 because I see more and more of my friends buying phones blindly and not being able to use them properly etc

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

Can i just say the m8 is like that pushy girl or guy that keeps pestering you for a date lol.

I won an m8 at work for a raffle. I wanted the 830 and ended up with an m8. Which is literally sitting in box on my dorm room desk collecting dust. My little brother has been wanting a new phone and I could give it to him but truth be told I want him on a Lumia.


Last night someone returned the m8 due to the phone rebooting itself twice since they had it and a third time while in store with my coworker holding it. HTC really needs to look into that cause and fix it, which makes me skeptical since they likely won't.

 

[Adrynalyne]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

Can i just say the m8 is like that pushy girl or guy that keeps pestering you for a date lol.

I won an m8 at work for a raffle. I wanted the 830 and ended up with an m8. Which is literally sitting in box on my dorm room desk collecting dust. My little brother has been wanting a new phone and I could give it to him but truth be told I want him on a Lumia.


Last night someone returned the m8 due to the phone rebooting itself twice since they had it and a third time while in store with my coworker holding it. HTC really needs to look into that cause and fix it, which makes me skeptical since they likely won't.

I think there is likely an undetermined factor that is making it hard to determine a root cause.

Im sitting at 12 days uptime, and that is because I manually rebooted it due to a tethering issue I was troubleshooting.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

Lol. I wanted it in my participated list so I can easily find it later when I'm bored. THAT'S when I'll read it.

Nice. So basically LOTS of people have to read a meaningless post because you can't use the subscribe button at the top of each thread?

You're as bad as me!

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

Nice. So basically LOTS of people have to read a meaningless post because you can't use the subscribe button at the top of each thread?

You're as bad as me!

Lol in his defense he did go back and read it he is probably on the app and there is no subscribe button.

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

I think there is likely an undetermined factor that is making it hard to determine a root cause.

Im sitting at 12 days uptime, and that is because I manually rebooted it due to a tethering issue I was troubleshooting.

From what I read it happens on the android version. So perhaps it isn't something HTC can fix.

 

[Karthik Naik]

frankly though the One M8 for windows seems like a very sincere effort from a non-lumia oem with dot view case and other goodies such as the HTC camera app ,blindfeed etc , i still feel the Lumias are better buys on the whole
of course this is just my opinion and may not be shared by others but the reason being,HTC and Samsung rarely release windows phones and when they do they dont really push the phone much
atleast HTC has made a very nice effort with the M8 for windows but it should release internationally etc
Samsung on the other hand is a very bad windows phone OEM imho,they dont take pains to give a unique experience over a Lumia or M8
plus theres the recent contraversies etc as well
I think HTC should collaborate with MS more and make a phone together with the goodness of both HTC and Nokia,that is one thing which would certainly shake up the industry

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

Re: The Human Race sickens me .. (HTC One M8 rant)

Good luck on the possible new job. Is there a MS store close by? You seem to be quite familiar with MS. Maybe that's a possibility also.

Just remembered to reply to this While nothing is set in stone, the job possibility is actually with Microsoft as well. So you never know and if I know anything it'll be closer to thanksgiving when I find it myself actually Thanks so much! It would be such a huge honor to work with/for Microsoft. I'd love a role to what Joe Belfiore has and/or marketing as I have a lot of ideas that I think would be good for Windows phone(And windows 10) tbh

The apple interview was actually sort of a spur of the moment thing(thanks to a friend) that I BS'd my way through and managed to actually do good at and I love the apple store atmosphere and I also love the Apple way of thinking(wish we had that with Lumia). Either way, I'll be having a new job later this month and I'm excited for it actually

 

[stephen_az]

Somehow I winded up playing defender of the M8 windows. Irony...

We all know my opinion on the HTC One M8(And android rehashes in general). I had the opportunity to spend most of the day using one yesterday at work. In fact, I had to pretty much use it the entire day so I can familiarize myself with it perfectly. While I wouldn't EVER trade my Lumia in for an HTC phone, my opinion of it is slightly less hostile. I still believe the OS deserves more than just a REHASH from these OEMs. But anyway.....

I got reported to my boss yesterday....Because I apparently sold the wrong phone to the customer. This is something about these rehashes especially with basically the same name that has always troubled me and i'll explain why. Simply put, people are idiots sometimes(and I try to give people the benefit of the doubt lol)

This guy comes in and looks at our phones. He then spends a lot of time looking at the M8. Specifically the Windows Phone Version.

He said I like this one "The colors are prettier"(Referring to the tiles). I let him know that yeah Windows Phone has pretty colors for tiles and that you can have backgrounds as well. Notice how I just said "WINDOWS PHONE"

He wanted to know more about the phone so I spent about 15 minutes showing him things. I had to use my Lumia 1520 to show him a more customized start screen(I know showing one phone to sell another lol) on WINDOWS PHONE(again notice the use of words).

He was very enthusiastic and loved it. Several times I mentioned it was a "Windows Phone".

When it came time to give him his phone, he booted it on. I didn't look at the screen itself but I know if it is anything like a Lumia, it boots up with Windows Phone on the boot screen.

He was all happy and what not. I gave him a link to WPC(I always do this with customers) that if he had any questions to ask on the forums here. Doing Promo for Daniel Rubino hehe

He comes back 2 hours later and tells me boss I sold him the wrong phone. He wanted the one with Google Hangouts, Gmail, etc etc

I explained to my boss that he looked at the original M8 briefly and liked the Windows version because of the colors.

His response "I don't even use Windows computers. Why would I want a phone. I told you I wanted the M8"

I responded back "Several times, I spoke about the phone's integration with Microsoft services. Never once did you mention google services and needing them. I even went on for 5 minutes about Cortana's integration with BING."

His response "Well, I don't understand why you would sell this phone. It's obviously inferior because it doesn't have android market or google. You should be fired for selling me a knockoff phone."

My boss(Love him but he does NOT like Conflict) is just standing there letting me basically get told off by some customer and by now I was growing aggravated.

My response: "The hardware is exactly the same as the Android counterpart. So it can't be a knock-off especially since HTC makes both phones. The difference is the software."

I then when on to explain some of the differences in the software(for example: The camera is better than the Android version(though that is not saying much, but I didn't say that) and the battery life is better).

"While I can give you the market place, it lacking google apps does not make it inferior anymore than an Android Phone lacking full Microsoft integration 100 percent does not make it inferior. They excel both at what they do for their specific OS."

His response: Why would they make two phones with two different OS

My response: Same reason I work retail and I dislike it. To make money.

He winded up apologizing after we swapped him out for the android version. He said that we shouldn't put them side by side because it confuses customers. But this was one thing I feared. I feared that general people are going to get confused.

I am not a fan of HTC, but i'd hate for someone to go for the M8 windows because of its pretty colors not fully realizing it is an entirely different OS. Go home and then wind up hating the OS based on their lack of being aware. It was not like I didn't fully explain WINDOWS PHONE to this guy. I said it several times and somehow this guy blamed ME for this.

It is a great win when HTC releases their top hardware for Windows Phone. But that brand identity lies with ANDROID. It really makes Windows Phone, in this case look like a knock-off simply because the ONE brand is synonymous with Android and people like this are not just in the minority. Many people think like that. At least change the branding of it(Motorola does this with their Droid and Non-droid phones).

LOL, on a plus side. I am glad I am quitting soon. Because my boss literally just stood there watching me as some guy is basically shouting at me and had I shouted back, I'd be the one fired

Where at the start of this long description of how stupid the person was did you bother to explicitly ask him whether he wanted the Android or Windows version? Where, likewise, did you specially define the differences between the two phones instead of just mentioning the one? Are you not the supposed expert on the subject? If you have two identical devices running different OSs, is it not your responsibility to make sure they are getting what they want instead of only mentioning the one that they may not even know exists? Pretty ironic that you refer to assuming customers are often idiots but then didn't bother to make sure this customer this one was not.

Beyond that, when did it become appropriate to argue with a customer? They made a mistake and came beck and since it was their money they get to whine even if they are wrong. The appropriate response is to bite your lip; apologize for the misunderstanding; and move on. Whether you are right or wrong is irrelevant to anyone other than your boss with whom you could speak privately.

Sorry but I can't buy this rant (your word not mine) since you helped create the confusion by not making the contrast clear at the start. The very fact they said they liked one because of the colors should have been a strong clue they needed guidance (beyond mentioning one OS) which you then did not provide. Seems to me there were mistakes made on both sides but you were the party on the retail side who appears to have never once mentioned the word Android to an ill informed customer. You then complicated the matter by not just apologizing when he came back. Whether or not you think someone is stupid has no bearing regarding how to respond and arguing with them/pointing out there errors is never an appropriate option. From my perspective your boss certainly did make mistakes. He/she evidently didn't make sure you were sufficiently trained in customer service 101, including how to deal with an angry customer. He/she also should have ended the discussion; directed you to other customers, inventory, etc.; and dealt with the customer privately .

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

I fail to see how it is my fault for not mentioning the differences between the phone with the customer initially expressed interest in the Windows version. In fact while looking at both models, they put down the actual android one and picked up the windows one and as I said showed an interest in the windows one.

That is like there being an IPhone 5C, 5S, 6 and 6 plus beside each other and the customer choosing the 5C because of the pretty colors and then returning back to the store blaming me because I gave them the wrong iPhone. They wanted the one with the touch ID, despite never actually mentioning anything to me before. Why would I waste time trying to explain something to a customer when I, being a normal human, go off of what I see aka his interest in the Windows Version therefore I did my job and educated him ON the windows version.

Now had this customer came back in and inquired about why his HTC one was different than he expected, I would have followed up to explain the differences(and similarities) between the two. I did my job adequately enough initially. I didn't do the best job however following up with the customer and his hostility and blaming me for his ignorance. I can admit that.

However I did not help create any confusion. I could have seen if he was looking at both of them equally undecided and I personally decided to push him towards the windows Version. HE chose the windows version all his own.

It's like a customer going into a restaurant and ordering ONE thing and then claiming the waiter brought them the wrong thing despite the waiter actually calling out the order back three times to verify the order was correct.

Yes, Customer Service 101 says the customer is always right.

But realistically speaking, I am not going to accept fault over a customer's mistake when they are trying to get ME in trouble for something THEY chose. I am also not going to apologize for something I did not do wrong.

Had the customer came up to me and said "I want the HTC one". I then would've asked which one and then explained the difference. Instead the customer showed an interest in Windows and no interest in the Android initially and given the fact that I repeated the words "WINDOWS PHONE" and never once mention Google, its services or android and I even showed him the Windows store, that is not my fault the customer did not know he in fact was purchasing the wrong one.

And you're right, my boss should have done better. Instead, I was left to deal with it and I dealt with it the way I chose to do so. Whether it was bad or not, the customer realized HE was in the wrong and he apologized to me. I wasn't outright rude, I simply was not going to kiss his **** nor take blame for his mistake.

Customer may always be right(so they say) but when my Job and my performance is being jeopardize for the ignorance of the customer,you're darn right I am going to let it be known that I did my part and I went above and beyond explaining a phone and its capabilities. It wasn't like I just sold him an HTC ONe M8 windows to make the sell. I spent time with him, used my own Lumia to showcase the OS since mine is fully customized and he liked what he saw.

I am pretty sure if someone comes in telling your boss that you need to be fired for THEIR MISTAKE you are not going to sit there and apologize. I don't even buy that BS. lol

Where at the start of this long description of how stupid the person was did you bother to explicitly ask him whether he wanted the Android or Windows version? Where, likewise, did you specially define the differences between the two phones instead of just mentioning the one? Are you not the supposed expert on the subject? If you have two identical devices running different OSs, is it not your responsibility to make sure they are getting what they want instead of only mentioning the one that they may not even know exists? Pretty ironic that you refer to assuming customers are often idiots but then didn't bother to make sure this customer this one was not.

Beyond that, when did it become appropriate to argue with a customer? They made a mistake and came beck and since it was their money they get to whine even if they are wrong. The appropriate response is to bite your lip; apologize for the misunderstanding; and move on. Whether you are right or wrong is irrelevant to anyone other than your boss with whom you could speak privately.

Sorry but I can't buy this rant (your word not mine) since you helped create the confusion by not making the contrast clear at the start. The very fact they said they liked one because of the colors should have been a strong clue they needed guidance (beyond mentioning one OS) which you then did not provide. Seems to me there were mistakes made on both sides but you were the party on the retail side who appears to have never once mentioned the word Android to an ill informed customer. You then complicated the matter by not just apologizing when he came back. Whether or not you think someone is stupid has no bearing regarding how to respond and arguing with them/pointing out there errors is never an appropriate option. From my perspective your boss certainly did make mistakes. He/she evidently didn't make sure you were sufficiently trained in customer service 101, including how to deal with an angry customer. He/she also should have ended the discussion; directed you to other customers, inventory, etc.; and dealt with the customer privately .

 

[TechFreak1]

At the op, I can see exactly where you are coming from and I have zero respect plus tolerance for such customers who make such remarks when they are at fault. They are a complete waste of time which is why it is imperative to nip their argument before they start babbling - if customers walk in, see you arguing - it doesn't reflect well on you as most won't stick around to hear your side of the story.

Unfortunately, they are the people most likely to spread their "ill" experience with their friends & families - simply because it is sparks conversation. Not many will rant & rave about the nice experience they had whilst purchasing a phone, like any utility or any other transaction it is taken for guarantee until they have a negative experience. With any sales role (apart from cold calling or cashier at a supermarket or general store) you are always bound to get the average joe looking for more than a refund.

Also to the poster, who said that the Customer is always right - yes that is true, however it is important to have a back bone as well otherwise they will walk all over you. Never the less every situation is different and commands a different approach every time. Sometimes the situation can be defused quickly and other times, well even issuing a refund, credit & discount isn't enough to cool down the situation and the silent treatment doesn't work - in that case they must be escorted off the premises before they lose you any more customers. However even there you will never win, as they could stand outside, shout abuse and pressure other customers away.

 

[TeknoBlast]

I actually kicked a person out of a store I used to work at while I was the cashier supervisor. Not only kicked them out, I pretty much ripped them a new one. It was totally grounds for termination and I didnt care if I was fired. I was just fed up with the "customer is always right" crap and wasnt going to allow a customer verbally abuse an employee or me.

I told my story and I would accept whatever punishment I would receive. Well, they didn't fire me and I worked there until I was ready to quit.

There has to be a point when you have to put them in their place no matter if the "customer is always right."

Needless to say, I no longer work in retail and don't have to deal with idiotic people.

​I feel for you OP.

 

[Spectral Entity]

First rule in sales: never assume anything.
Second rule: ask questions.

You did your job and, from the sound of it, did it well, but the whole scenario could have been avoided by responding "Which version?" when the guy stated he wanted the M8. He may have been confused by the question, but it would have opened the door for a clear differentiation between models.