Bad experience with Asus customer service

Since the company's customer service is certainly a part of owning a laptop, I figured I would share this experience.

My UL30A-A2 came with a defective screen (scratched). I contacted Asus customer support, and I was told that I should definitely have it back before Christmas. They told me 2 days to get it out to them, 1 day at the depot, and 2 days back to me. I'd understand if there were shipping delays this time of year, but they said that the FedEx return service would still get through in time.

I got the computer to them last Thursday (FedEx tracking shows it arriving at 10am Thursday). I was told to include a copy of the original Amazon invoice, which I did. On Monday I finally receive an e-mail saying that they did not find the invoice in the box. It was taped to the computer inside the box, so there's no possible way that it didn't make it to the depot. I scan the invoice in and get it back to them within half an hour of receiving this e-mail.

I call back today and there still hasn't been anything done. They received my e-mail, but have just not done any work on getting me my replacement computer. The UL30 is my primary computer (I had to borrow my dad's Eee due to the length of time I've been without it now), so not having it is very prohibitive to my work. They guaranteed me that there would only be a one day turn-around despite the busy season, and they didn't even look at my computer until two business days after they received it. The response I received today was, "I'll make a note to try to expedite it, but there's no way to force them to send out the computer faster."

I hope this is an exception to the rule and that others do not have the same experience, but I have been very disappointed with my customer service experience so far.

 

This is far from the exception and in my experience has been and always will be the norm. Consider yourself lucky if you get your computer back without waiting 3 weeks or more!

 

First and foremost. Do NOT use the RMAs if you get an item that arrives damaged out of the box. Even on Newegg (Yes I know their policies about laptop returns - insist on sending it back to Newegg and they'll let you.) Dealing with a laptop that was not 100% perfect out of the box is always easiest through the seller.

RMAing laptops you run the risk of them not being fixed, replacing parts with refurbs and worst of all being damaged by the techs. I've had a nearly new HP laptop arrive badly scuffed up and HP denied any responsibility.

Sorry you got lied to by the CSR. I've had to RMA Dell, HP, Lenovo and Sony laptops. All of them took at least 2 weeks, worse yet HP loved to send laptops back saying "Unable to replicate problem. Returned to factory settings." It was infuriating, not only did HP not fix the issue but they blew away the drive so I'd have to restore from a backup.

Asus I've not had personal experience with, a friends cousin had to RMA his asus laptop and it took him around a week and a half.

My point is that all in all what you're experiencing isn't 'bad' service as such - it's more or less the industry standard for RMAs to be somewhat sluggish and Asus is actually better than a lot of other manufacturers.

There are obvious exceptions, Dell GTS is amazing and easy to deal with but not accessible to regualar customers, even their XPS support kinda sucks nowdays.

 

This is just yet another reason NEVER to have your data or anything extra on a laptop drive. Or at least have everything backed up that you create. I don't think very many of us are like that or go to that trouble so I suggest to use an external source for your data or anything that is not OS-dependent. It's much easier to reinstall Windows than to worry about data that's on there now that you have a defective laptop! Okay, carry on...

 

It's like every year the overal quality and service gets worse. Would be great if no one in the entire world would ever buy anything again untill they made some good quality again and get their 'you-know-what' together in the customer services. We should blame ourselves though, always buying the newest things without reading reviews (ok, the members of this forum are an exception), always buying the cheapest laptops. Brands like HP and Acer have the worst quality and still sell the most. Why should they give better quality if everybody choses their products because they are cheaper anyway? If good quality brands like asus want to compete with such conmpanies, they are forced to lower the prices, and therefor lower the quality.

 

True. Good points, S@Ap2009. The other problem is that the manufacturers are trying to build the cheapest product for the most profit. They aren't building in the U.S.A. anymore if you get my drift.

Companies are cutting corners and will use an inferior part or component if it saves them money and they think they can get away with it. Sometimes, it goes under the radar and there is no consequence and sometimes it becomes a major problem. But, they are willing to do that in order to maximize profit. It's about greed, imho.