Dear Readers, Helio broke Mr S.'s heart. He said he was fine, but then I'd walk in on him looking at a Helio forum. Or reading comments over at Engadget. He's not fine I thought.
Mr S. thinks he'll give Helio one more chance to try and sell him a phone. He is much nicer and more tolerant than I am. I would have given up on them after the last conversation.
But at this point Mr S. is starting to really need a phone. His phone is really screwed.
So he emails customer support at Helio to see if anyone else can provide a location to see a working phone. I'm sure he thinks customer support will give him a dealer in the next city over. Or two cities over... or even maybe 10 cities over. This is fucking Silicon Valley after all. Most people probably commute through 6 cities to get to work.
This is how it went:
Subject: Where can I see a *working* demo of a Helio Ocean?
I'm interested in the Ocean. It sounds nice, but I would have to see a working one in person before purchasing. But none of the Helio dealers in my area (zip XXXXX) have a working one. They all have only hollow shells. I'm not buying a phone w/o seeing it work first. I can go to the local Apple store and see an IPhone. I can go to the local Verizon/Cingular/Whatever cell store and see Blackberries, SmartPhones, Qs, etc. All working demos.
Where can I go to see a working Helio Ocean?"
Helio emails back:
"Hello from Helio, this is Noel,
Thank you for your inquiry.
Thank you for taking the time to e-mail Helio. I am sorry to hear you have had such a difficult time finding a retailer with a working demo device. I understand that you wish to see the device working before purchasing it. I really do not blame you. We all like to know what we are purchasing, so I went ahead and looked up all authorized retail stores in your area. (XXXXX)
Hear is a list of all the local retailers:
(Noel provides a list of 6 local retailers. Phone#'s and addresses)
I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Thank you for contacting Helio and have a nice day.
I hope we answered your question. If we didn't answer your question or if you have additional questions, please send us another e-mail at the address below.
Helio Member Care
Membercare@helio.com "
Mr S.'s reply:
"Hello Noel,
While I appreciate the kind and understanding words, I don't see how you think you answered my question at all.
To recap: I did this:
(1) looked up my local Helio dealers on your website
(2) called those dealers, and determined that none of them have a working demo of a Helio Ocean
(3) emailed you, asking for help locating a dealer who _does_ have a working demo.
In your response, you gave me exactly the same list I started with in step #1. (You obviously didn't try to verify that the dealerships actually had a working model, otherwise you wouldn't have listed those same dealers)
How is that supposed to help me? To repeat: those dealers _do_not_ have a working demo.
You can help me by finding a dealer which _does_ have a working model that I can see demo'ed."
Should it really be this hard to see one of these phones?
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query helio. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query helio. Sort by date Show all posts
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Last update on Helio.
So.. the good news is Helio customer service does respond to email quickly. I have to give a point in their favor. However, I really don't understand how a company can stay in business with the reply I got.
This is what they said:
"Hello from Helio, this is Joseph,
Thank you for your inquiry.
I apologize, but if those dealers do not have a working demonstration, then there are no other retailers in your area who have one. I realize that this is a huge inconvenience to you, but you may wish to take advantage of our Thirty Day Happiness Guarantee, where you can order a device and activate an account. If for any reason you are not completely satisfied, you can cancel your service and return your device for a full refund within the first thirty days. Thanks again for your inquiry. I apologize that we cannot locate any more retailers for you to visit. Have a great day!
I hope we answered your question. If we didn't answer your question or if you have additional questions, please send us another e-mail at the address below.
Helio Member Care
Membercare@helio.com "
To say that I am completely shocked by this is an understatement. They're joking. Right?
Within a 25 mile radius of me, Helio has 48 stores.
Within a 50 mile radius there are 143 stores. That covers most of the greater San Fransisco Bay Area. Including pretty much all of Silicon Valley. Which by the way - I think would be at least in the top ten of market importance.
Are they seriously telling me they don't have one working phone in a 143 stores?
Mr S. decided after the last interaction (here) with Helio that we would not be buying from them. But I am fascinated that a company can make a big deal about themselves "being different from the other guys". When they've pretty must demonstrated that they are no different from the "other guys".
Unless that means worse.
This is what they said:
"Hello from Helio, this is Joseph,
Thank you for your inquiry.
I apologize, but if those dealers do not have a working demonstration, then there are no other retailers in your area who have one. I realize that this is a huge inconvenience to you, but you may wish to take advantage of our Thirty Day Happiness Guarantee, where you can order a device and activate an account. If for any reason you are not completely satisfied, you can cancel your service and return your device for a full refund within the first thirty days. Thanks again for your inquiry. I apologize that we cannot locate any more retailers for you to visit. Have a great day!
I hope we answered your question. If we didn't answer your question or if you have additional questions, please send us another e-mail at the address below.
Helio Member Care
Membercare@helio.com "
To say that I am completely shocked by this is an understatement. They're joking. Right?
Within a 25 mile radius of me, Helio has 48 stores.
Within a 50 mile radius there are 143 stores. That covers most of the greater San Fransisco Bay Area. Including pretty much all of Silicon Valley. Which by the way - I think would be at least in the top ten of market importance.
Are they seriously telling me they don't have one working phone in a 143 stores?
Mr S. decided after the last interaction (here) with Helio that we would not be buying from them. But I am fascinated that a company can make a big deal about themselves "being different from the other guys". When they've pretty must demonstrated that they are no different from the "other guys".
Unless that means worse.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Helio - Are they High?
Let me quote directly from the Helio site:
"We're some folks who got fed up with the existing carriers, their one-size fits-all philosophy, generic devices and disappointing service. We wanted more from our wireless experience. Since there wasn't already a mobile company out there for people like us, we created one of our own."
You can not believe how truly crazy this statement is.
Today Mr S. and I wanted to look at one of these phones. His phone is really screwed, and he'd been lusting after a Helio for months.
So we walk into one of their "premier" dealers in Fremont, Ca.
They didn't have one in the store, but we could order one. Why they think I'm going to order something site unseen is beyond me.
So, Mr S. decides he will have to call the stores before we waste our time driving around. We called three of their stores. Again, these are stores they list as premier sales sites.
Store after store said the following:
1. They each had a Helio Ocean shell (i.e. non-functional) they could show us.
2. They didn't display any working models because they were super paranoid about them being left out and stolen.
Lets address problem #2 first. Have they ever fucking heard of lo-jacking the phones? They aren't even that expensive compared to say.... a Blackberry. And the places who do sell expensive phones have them all cabled to the wall. So WTF?
What makes them think their service is better than other carriers when you can't even find a phone to look at. And if you did, all the guts have been removed so you can't even turn the phone on? Who's bright idea was that?
Update:
While I was writing this post Mr S. was on the line to the Helio sales department to ask them where he could see one of the phones in our area. The support rep asked for our zip code. It was at this point that Mr S. told them he had called all the stores in our area and none of them had a working model.
The rep then said the best thing for us to do was to buy one and take advantage of the 30 day "total happiness guarantee".
Mr S. stopped him immediately and told him that wasn't happening. Which made the rep say he didn't know what to tell Mr S. Who then said "Well then I guess you aren't selling a phone."
This is the best part. The rep actually said "fine by me".
It is times like this I wish I recorded the call. But you just don't expect support reps to say crap like that. I mean.. we aren't being unreasonable in wanting to see the phone in person. Are we?
I also don't think I should have to call all over Silicon Valley to find an in store model. Which at this point, I'm not even sure exists.
Thank heavens they are so concerned about disappointing service.
"We're some folks who got fed up with the existing carriers, their one-size fits-all philosophy, generic devices and disappointing service. We wanted more from our wireless experience. Since there wasn't already a mobile company out there for people like us, we created one of our own."
You can not believe how truly crazy this statement is.
Today Mr S. and I wanted to look at one of these phones. His phone is really screwed, and he'd been lusting after a Helio for months.
So we walk into one of their "premier" dealers in Fremont, Ca.
They didn't have one in the store, but we could order one. Why they think I'm going to order something site unseen is beyond me.
So, Mr S. decides he will have to call the stores before we waste our time driving around. We called three of their stores. Again, these are stores they list as premier sales sites.
Store after store said the following:
1. They each had a Helio Ocean shell (i.e. non-functional) they could show us.
2. They didn't display any working models because they were super paranoid about them being left out and stolen.
Lets address problem #2 first. Have they ever fucking heard of lo-jacking the phones? They aren't even that expensive compared to say.... a Blackberry. And the places who do sell expensive phones have them all cabled to the wall. So WTF?
What makes them think their service is better than other carriers when you can't even find a phone to look at. And if you did, all the guts have been removed so you can't even turn the phone on? Who's bright idea was that?
Update:
While I was writing this post Mr S. was on the line to the Helio sales department to ask them where he could see one of the phones in our area. The support rep asked for our zip code. It was at this point that Mr S. told them he had called all the stores in our area and none of them had a working model.
The rep then said the best thing for us to do was to buy one and take advantage of the 30 day "total happiness guarantee".
Mr S. stopped him immediately and told him that wasn't happening. Which made the rep say he didn't know what to tell Mr S. Who then said "Well then I guess you aren't selling a phone."
This is the best part. The rep actually said "fine by me".
It is times like this I wish I recorded the call. But you just don't expect support reps to say crap like that. I mean.. we aren't being unreasonable in wanting to see the phone in person. Are we?
I also don't think I should have to call all over Silicon Valley to find an in store model. Which at this point, I'm not even sure exists.
Thank heavens they are so concerned about disappointing service.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Retailers still don't get it.
Hey Retailers - want to know why Amazon and Apple are kicking your ass? They give a customers a pleasant experience. Learn from it or go extinct.
Today I give you three examples of how out of touch companies are with their customer base.
The first - cell phone shopping. Let me preface this by saying that if I'm in a store, I have a hairline trigger on my credit card. I'm 90% sure I'm buying something. I don't spend my days in the malls browsing. I'm an honest to God paying customer.
The only thing left for a sales person to do, is not talk me out of a purchase. All I want to do is smell the factory air, and make sure there isn't something obvious that doesn't suck. Or else I would have just bought XYZ product online. So, you can understand my amazement with this interaction at the Verizon store this morning. Which BTW was completely empty.
Mr S. and I walk over and start checking out the new Blackberry Storms. I was actually delighted to see they had two models working. Last year at this time we bought new cell phones, and you were lucky to get a working model of anything. Remember my Helio story? And, just as an aside. Do retailers even get why Apple stores are packed? Let me give you a hint. They let the customers touch, and play. Not some dumbed down version of a working model. A full working user model of their products.
Anyway, Mr S. and I are starting to play with the features of the Storm.
Mr S. - (asking the hovering sales Dude) what do these things run?
Verizon Sales Dude - They are 30 bucks more a month.
This Readers - stops me in my tracks. I look at the sales guy with a raised eyebrow and say "well, how do you know how much we are paying now"?
Verizon Sales Dude - Well, there is a 30 dollar a month charge.
Mr S - For what?
Verizon Sales Dude - For the data plan.
Now Readers, I'm going to be honest here. When everyone tells me the economy is in the shits, and I walk into a store and the sales guy immediately tells me I'm going to pay more for something - it isn't a good start.
Firstly, I've already got a data plan. Secondly, I'm paying Verizon 277 bucks a month for 2 phone lines, a wireless card line, and an OnStar line. So f-u, to start a sales pitch that way. Are you people out of your minds? I basically give them the equivilant of a car payment each month. And, the sales guy hovering over me the whole time I'm playing with the phone is so irritating. So irritating!
Next - my MIL bought us something from Chefs.com. I won't even go into it, but we can't use it. We just wanted to return it for store credit. We are a captive customer. We don't want the money - we will just buy something else. The item costs 120 bucks. But, Chefs.com doesn't give store credit. You can send the item back, and they will send you a check. Or you can order something else. If the item costs less, they will send you a check for the difference, if it costs more, you have to send your credit card number off in the mail for the difference. As they have no stores here to walk into to return items. Readers... who conducts business this way in this day and age? Why are they making it difficult to just buy something else from them? Why?
Last - this morning at breakfast. I'm not a big comparison shopping person. Something has to really stand out to attract my attention. Which is what happened this morning. I was looking at omelets.
Me - "Hey Mr.S. Did omelets always cost 10 or 11 bucks here"?
This was IHOP for Christ sakes. We don't eat there often, but 11 bucks for an omelet might have attracted my attention before.
Him - I don't think so. Look, just a plain ham and cheese omelet costs 10 bucks.
For that price, I'm expecting a gourmet omelet. Which is not what IHOP does. I just do not understand why companies think that raising prices when business is declining is the answer to their problems. If I have a bad meal, I might give them another chance. But, I never think businesses are going to lower prices, and that is going to stick with me longer than crappy food.
And! I'm going to present you with this crappy picture, because the Verizon Sales Dude sucked so hard. I couldn't get a better cell phone camera to take a better picture. You will just have to trust me that omelet costs 10 bucks.
Truthfully, the whole thing annoys the crap out of me. I'd hoped that the rough economy might teach retailers how to satisfy their customers. But, it isn't. It is just giving them a reason to be in denial about their products and services. If you just gave us what we wanted without a lot of extra bullshit, people would buy stuff. But instead, they loose sale after sale to people who have their credit card extended at the door. Yet they manage to get customers to silently slip the card back into their pockets because the sales people are so clueless.
Today I give you three examples of how out of touch companies are with their customer base.
The first - cell phone shopping. Let me preface this by saying that if I'm in a store, I have a hairline trigger on my credit card. I'm 90% sure I'm buying something. I don't spend my days in the malls browsing. I'm an honest to God paying customer.
The only thing left for a sales person to do, is not talk me out of a purchase. All I want to do is smell the factory air, and make sure there isn't something obvious that doesn't suck. Or else I would have just bought XYZ product online. So, you can understand my amazement with this interaction at the Verizon store this morning. Which BTW was completely empty.
Mr S. and I walk over and start checking out the new Blackberry Storms. I was actually delighted to see they had two models working. Last year at this time we bought new cell phones, and you were lucky to get a working model of anything. Remember my Helio story? And, just as an aside. Do retailers even get why Apple stores are packed? Let me give you a hint. They let the customers touch, and play. Not some dumbed down version of a working model. A full working user model of their products.
Anyway, Mr S. and I are starting to play with the features of the Storm.
Mr S. - (asking the hovering sales Dude) what do these things run?
Verizon Sales Dude - They are 30 bucks more a month.
This Readers - stops me in my tracks. I look at the sales guy with a raised eyebrow and say "well, how do you know how much we are paying now"?
Verizon Sales Dude - Well, there is a 30 dollar a month charge.
Mr S - For what?
Verizon Sales Dude - For the data plan.
Now Readers, I'm going to be honest here. When everyone tells me the economy is in the shits, and I walk into a store and the sales guy immediately tells me I'm going to pay more for something - it isn't a good start.
Firstly, I've already got a data plan. Secondly, I'm paying Verizon 277 bucks a month for 2 phone lines, a wireless card line, and an OnStar line. So f-u, to start a sales pitch that way. Are you people out of your minds? I basically give them the equivilant of a car payment each month. And, the sales guy hovering over me the whole time I'm playing with the phone is so irritating. So irritating!
Next - my MIL bought us something from Chefs.com. I won't even go into it, but we can't use it. We just wanted to return it for store credit. We are a captive customer. We don't want the money - we will just buy something else. The item costs 120 bucks. But, Chefs.com doesn't give store credit. You can send the item back, and they will send you a check. Or you can order something else. If the item costs less, they will send you a check for the difference, if it costs more, you have to send your credit card number off in the mail for the difference. As they have no stores here to walk into to return items. Readers... who conducts business this way in this day and age? Why are they making it difficult to just buy something else from them? Why?
Last - this morning at breakfast. I'm not a big comparison shopping person. Something has to really stand out to attract my attention. Which is what happened this morning. I was looking at omelets.
Me - "Hey Mr.S. Did omelets always cost 10 or 11 bucks here"?
This was IHOP for Christ sakes. We don't eat there often, but 11 bucks for an omelet might have attracted my attention before.
Him - I don't think so. Look, just a plain ham and cheese omelet costs 10 bucks.
For that price, I'm expecting a gourmet omelet. Which is not what IHOP does. I just do not understand why companies think that raising prices when business is declining is the answer to their problems. If I have a bad meal, I might give them another chance. But, I never think businesses are going to lower prices, and that is going to stick with me longer than crappy food.
And! I'm going to present you with this crappy picture, because the Verizon Sales Dude sucked so hard. I couldn't get a better cell phone camera to take a better picture. You will just have to trust me that omelet costs 10 bucks.
Truthfully, the whole thing annoys the crap out of me. I'd hoped that the rough economy might teach retailers how to satisfy their customers. But, it isn't. It is just giving them a reason to be in denial about their products and services. If you just gave us what we wanted without a lot of extra bullshit, people would buy stuff. But instead, they loose sale after sale to people who have their credit card extended at the door. Yet they manage to get customers to silently slip the card back into their pockets because the sales people are so clueless.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
My unscientific shopping report.
Try as I might - I couldn't inject any money into the economy. And, I was trying really hard.
If you listen to the news, the message is all gloom. People are returning purchased Christmas items, and going home to put the money into their mattresses. What I found was quite the contrary.
Electronics obviously is the bright spot. We went to Fry's electronics last night. It wasn't the busiest I've ever seen it. In the top 10 busiest days though. But, surprisingly the return isle was almost empty. I'd say there were maybe 5 people in it. The isle to check out was completely full. Those isles in SValley are about 100 feet long. We stayed in the store maybe a half an hour. It was full pretty much the whole time, and a steady stream of people. We had money to burn - but we didn't find anything worth standing in that line for. There weren't that many big ticket items being sold, but lots and lots of small items.
Home Depot. I figured we needed a radial pull saw, and maybe they would have discounts. The place was dead. And, there were no discounts.
2 Cell phone stores. Verizon and At&T. Both completely dead. From all that I'd seen, the cell phone market had collapsed. So you can imagine my surprise when we went to Best Buy today and it was completely packed. Most notably the cell phone department. Crazy packed. Even the desk where you sign up for cell phone services.
Mr S. had an interesting observation. Best Buy sells pretty much all the cell phone types. Which I'm betting makes people very happy. You don't have to go around to all the different cell phones stores where the sales guys are freaking annoying. One stop shopping.
The one exception? The Google phone. The one we wanted to look at, of course. Their website said they carried it. But, Best buy said they don't stock any T-moble devices. I'm starting to wonder if the Google phone is the next Helio vaporware device. Backstory here, here and here.
Target also said they carried it. But, when we asked the guy in the electronics department - he said they didn't carry it, and the Target website is really just redirected to the Amazon website. Eeek. I'm not sure why he said that. Sales people are so wacky. But, I was able to win some money from Mr S. I bet there was no way Target carried the Gphone. And they didn't. Yeah - I'm poking him.
Target was also pretty packed, and people were buying stuff. The return isle was minimal.
If you listen to the news, the message is all gloom. People are returning purchased Christmas items, and going home to put the money into their mattresses. What I found was quite the contrary.
Electronics obviously is the bright spot. We went to Fry's electronics last night. It wasn't the busiest I've ever seen it. In the top 10 busiest days though. But, surprisingly the return isle was almost empty. I'd say there were maybe 5 people in it. The isle to check out was completely full. Those isles in SValley are about 100 feet long. We stayed in the store maybe a half an hour. It was full pretty much the whole time, and a steady stream of people. We had money to burn - but we didn't find anything worth standing in that line for. There weren't that many big ticket items being sold, but lots and lots of small items.
Home Depot. I figured we needed a radial pull saw, and maybe they would have discounts. The place was dead. And, there were no discounts.
2 Cell phone stores. Verizon and At&T. Both completely dead. From all that I'd seen, the cell phone market had collapsed. So you can imagine my surprise when we went to Best Buy today and it was completely packed. Most notably the cell phone department. Crazy packed. Even the desk where you sign up for cell phone services.
Mr S. had an interesting observation. Best Buy sells pretty much all the cell phone types. Which I'm betting makes people very happy. You don't have to go around to all the different cell phones stores where the sales guys are freaking annoying. One stop shopping.
The one exception? The Google phone. The one we wanted to look at, of course. Their website said they carried it. But, Best buy said they don't stock any T-moble devices. I'm starting to wonder if the Google phone is the next Helio vaporware device. Backstory here, here and here.
Target also said they carried it. But, when we asked the guy in the electronics department - he said they didn't carry it, and the Target website is really just redirected to the Amazon website. Eeek. I'm not sure why he said that. Sales people are so wacky. But, I was able to win some money from Mr S. I bet there was no way Target carried the Gphone. And they didn't. Yeah - I'm poking him.
Target was also pretty packed, and people were buying stuff. The return isle was minimal.
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