Asus: Caution - - Extremely Poor Customer Service

[Steve419]

This has undoubtedly been the worst customer service experience of my life. I purchased an Asus netbook in May 2010; this post will be a very brief summary of unbelievably poor service as a note of caution to others.

Shortly after purchasing the Asus netbook, it died. After several long and frustrating calls, their service techs told us it was a battery issue and sent a new one, which took way too long to get to our home. That did not solve the problem as the unit remained dead, and after many more calls, we were told to ship the unit back to Asus for repair. Weeks later it was sent back to us, along with a new battery charger. We used the unit for a week, went to re-charge the battery, and found Asus had sent us the wrong charger.

After a couple of more calls and very lengthy hold times, I requested from a supervisor that a new charger be shipped to me overnight mail; he told me we needed to send him the charger and then they would send us a new one, and not overnight. I refused to do this and asked again for an overnight shipment given the complete inconvenience Asus was causing me and the fact that I was about to travel and wanted to take it with me. He told me he would make the request and that we would receive a call that night to confirm the overnight shipping. We never got the call, and I have called their service line three more times, having been disconnected, then put on hold for over 30 minutes each time.

Finally, I got through again, was put on hold for 90 minutes waiting to once again talk to a supervisor. I was never put through to one (the service tech told me that one would call me back) and I asked to speak to the call center manager/director, whereupon the service tech hung up on me. It is now three days later and still no call backs from them and still no charger.

Worst of all, we have now been without a working netbook for 5 of the 7 months since I purchased it, and their customer service has been horrendous. I could never consider another Asus product or recommend Asus to anyone. I cannot imagine how Asus allows this level of service to exist. All they do is throw standard answers at you, followed by bureaucratic process. If you're reading this, do yourself a favor and avoid Asus at all costs.

[ThisIsNot]

This is not anything specific to Asus either. Almost everyone has some horror story from every PC manufacturer out there ranging from Acer, Gateway, Dell, HP, Asus, Sony, and even Apple. I have a Dell horror story that is even worse than yours, there is another user on here who refuses to ever buy HP (yet I have had nothing but positive experience with their products and customer service), etc.

Yes, it sucks that you are having this issue but EVERY company out there has at least 3.45X10^10 customers just like you experiencing poor customer service. There was a time when customer service was taken seriously. I remember buying a Gateway back in 1997 and always received prompt over-the-phone service and even speedy repairs. I purchased a Dell in 2004 and it was a nightmare that wasn't solved until 2005. Their customer service was horrible as I was always connected to a country that shall not be named speaking with people who did not understand my problem.

I even called Apple once as the white earbuds that came with my iPod in 2008 didn't work. I was on hold for an hour and talked with the guy for another 2 hours before they finally sent me a replacement set. The service tech wanted me to re-install iTunes, reset my iPod, restore my iPod, and everything else through their laundry list despite my issue being with the included headphones only. I could not explain to the country not named guy that the issue was with the headphones, not with the headphone output on my iPod.

Sorry to hear about your problem though. It sucks when people have negative customer service issues. That seems to be an area that has slipped over the years. We are now outsourcing PC production to countries (mainly a single country) with lax environmental and worker laws while support for that product is being outsourced to another country whose workers go buy Daniel and Mechelle yet we know full well that is not the case. I miss the days when customer service was taken seriously. Even in-store customer service is pretty bad these days. I had to stand in line for 2 hours to return the desk dock for my Droid X while trying to explain that the employee said it would fit my Droid X with the case on, it didn't (this was at Best Buy). I then had to explain that I didn't want to take my X's case off and on every single night to use the dock and I wanted my money back. The whole ordeal took me nearly 3 hours until they finally refunded my purchase.

[JesterEric]

I'm sorry for your problems with ASUS. As TiNman noted, all companies have stories like this. That shouldn't really mean much, it just means they all suck at least equally.

In my case, ASUS has never done me wrong, but I've never had to go through the company. There is an *amazing* EEE user forum that has handled most problems. If you really had a hardware problem, though, you might have had to bite the bullet, and I am sorry to hear ASUS hasn't done you right.

[davebrian]

Sorry you got into such problems with your netbook and that\'s really the worst customer service by asus