Dealing with the new iPhone 5: Top 5 user complaints

Even though Apple booked a record-breaking sale by selling 5 million iPhone 5 within the first weekend of its release, the much created hype soon died when users started complaining about glitches in the new iPhone. Instead of admiring iPhone 5 for its bigger display, lighter and thinner form, and fast processor, users have started flooding the complaint and discussion forums by reporting issues such as scratches, screen issues, map showing up wrong locations, and the like.

Though some issues are user-specific, there are others that have been noted by the mass. Let’s have a look at the five most common gripes people are facing with their iPhone 5: 

1. Messy and incorrect Maps App
For the first time, Apple replaced the Google Maps app with its own app to locate cities and map directions. But unfortunately, its Maps app proved to be a complete mess. Users have complained that the new app mislabels cities, fails to locate address, and is unable to provide transit directions. This had made people to rely on Google maps to get directions.

2. Finicky Wi-Fi
There are problems with the Wi-Fi networks as well. Some people, on Apple forum, have complained that their iPhone 5 is unable to find Wi-Fi networks. While others report that their iPhone 5 is able to connect to the Wi-Fi only for brief periods throughout the day.

3. Leaky light
Users, on multiple forums, are reporting that in their iPhone 5, the light from the screen appears to leak through the top right corner of the screen.

4. Flickering screen
Many users have also complained of wired bubbles appearing on one part of the screen when they touch the other side. Some users have also reported that their iPhone 5 screen starts to flicker.

5. Draining battery
Complaints about poor battery backup have also flooded the Apple discussion forums. People have complained of losing 40% of the fully-charged battery in about one hour.

With all these issues cropping up during the initial days of release, Apple iPhone 5 has experienced a dip in its popularity. But what’s the reason behind it? Has Apple failed to meet user’s expectations with iPhone 5? Is the dream seen by Steve Jobs fading away? Or is just the unrealistic expectations of customers that are killing the iPhone 5’s popularity? What do you think? Do let us know…

Common Tech Support Complaints and Issues

One of the strong areas where a tech support service provider can build up better customer relation is embracing customers’ grievances and complaints. Tech support companies need to use their resources of customers’ complaints to redress the imbalance and improve their quality of delivery. Dissatisfaction can stem from various reasons such as problems with the service, misinterpretation of issues, error in delivery or poor problem solving and many more.

Following types of tech support complaints are widespread. 

“I talked to someone else and they were no help.”
More often, customers feel harassed and felt their issues were not responded effectively. In such situations, a tech support representative need to accept their grievance about some other employee of the organization who could do nothing to solve their problems. Representatives must portray that situation as an isolated occurrence without criticizing co-workers for their inability to help. Then, ask customer to explain the situation to use own experience and skills in order to offer an effective resolution.

“I’ve been waiting here forever!”  
Many a times, customers have to wait for long period before they could get connected to a tech support representative. The first step would be to acknowledge their customers’ difficulties without blaming on subordinates or peers. They need to also express gratitude for customers’ patience and how they can work hard to reduce wait time. They need to promise and work hard to deliver quick issue resolution.

“Well, your competitors said they would do this…”
The instant response of a tech support representative will be to offer service or resolution to scale up over their competitors. Representatives must consider stiff competition and the impact of losing customers over small competition. They need to offer something extra that competitors do not have in place. Consider such complaints as milestones to improve their customer support to outshine their competitors.

Complains – The force that drives social media traffic

Complains always attract attention. Well, they attract traffic too. E-mails, chats, and phone calls are the things of the past. Today, it’s all about social media. If you like something, you flag it through your Facebook account. Similarly, if you hate something, that gets aired too, and if it is related to a popular brand or a service provider, in all possibilities, it will go viral.

Social media has empowered users to voice their complains in public, making them a global news. Pick up any complain through social networking sites and the stats will be the same - thousands of views, more than 500 likes, and hundreds of shares across various social media platforms. Due to the nature of traffic these complains attract, companies have become too cautious while responding to these negative feedbacks. Most of the companies have roped in social media experts to help their customers and avoid any kind of negativity from being spread through these platforms. These experts eagerly try to pacify the irate customers before their posts, rather complains, become the talk of the town. Rather than deleting the posts, further aggravating the annoyed customer, they try to engage them and, at times, move them to different channels.

So, if you are a running a business and want to keep your customers happy and avoid bad social media traffic, then that’s possible only through great customer service. However, some other ways to avoid negative traffic are:

1. Address the issue, don’t back off: Respond to complains on one-on-one basis. If the complain is about a bad service or a faulty product, apologize. Also provide them with a solution to solve their problem.

2. Check the issue: Verify the issue personally. Lookout for any misleading information that may pass out wrong signals to other customers.

3. Reach Out: Send your unhappy customer an email or a direct message saying that appropriate measures are being taken to resolve their issue.

4. Move them to a different channel: Try to divert the attention of your customer from social media to some other channel like e-mail, complain forum, or feedback survey form.  Most of the times ‘140 characters’ are not sufficient to explain the entire issue.

Remember, effectively dealing with complaints will turn disgruntled customers into evangelist.

Resolution of iYogi Complaints and More

Remote tech support has never been more vibrant and in-demand as it is now. Today there are many reputed brands jostling with one another to grab your attention. Competition among service providers actually is a healthy sign as it ensures better service quality. But what happens if you still don’t get the promised services from your service provider? Will you keep changing service providers for every silly problem that you face or is there a way out? It is not advisable, nor prudent to keep running from pillar to post to get that perfect service provider. Instead, if there is likelihood that you can get better services and get the complaint redressed with your current service provider, there is no harm in trying that. Similarly for iyogi complaints; if you are aggrieved with iyogi’s services, figure out how the issues can be addressed.

Realize that the law of average rules out perfection of any sorts, even if you are associated with the best of the best. Once in a while you will get services that are off the mark, and the best thing would be to take it in your stride. But instead if you start making a big issue out of it, it may only make matters worse. If you have iyogi complaints, calibrate them. Is a problem big enough to warrant a change in the service provider, or is it a minor aberration.

Remember as customers you also owe your company a chance for getting their act right. In fact, it is your feedback that will help the company make policy changes and align their services in accordance with your popular demands, and not the other way round.

We suggest you use any of the following two methods for managing iyogi complaints:

1.Complaints form for quicker response

The first option is the iyogi complaints form. The iYogi complaints form is a platform for customers to raise their concerns about iyogi services. Since the company has pledged its readiness to go through each and every complaint posted here, it is your normal recourse. You are though required to post only genuine experiences and your views must not be biased towards anyone in particular. The advantage of this method is you don’t have to waste time and you can post a complaint anytime you want. Mostly there are separate teams to handle complaints posted here, so resolutions are faster.

2. Using phone and e-mail support option

Another option is to call the customer care people and tell them about your complaint. As a normal practice they may first verify your account details before working on your problem. This method is adopted by the majority of the customers, so how quickly the technicians can work on your problem may vary depending on available resources. The time lag may also differ depending on the nature of your problem. If it is a minor complaint, other urgent cases may take preference over yours. So, you need to keep patience at such times. You might even choose to send an e-mail to customer care for help.

Interestingly enough, if you are a bit tech savvy and are ready to do a few things by yourself you won’t have to bother about iyogi complaints. Here is how:

1. Do It Yourself (DIY)

One way of dealing with computer troubles is by following the DIY manual. It can be fun and challenging and you can also get good company and assistance as well. Just go to the iYogi site and you will get many troubleshooting blogs on various issues related to computer and its peripherals. In addition to that, there are also YouTube videos to help you out. You are good enough to troubleshoot some of the issues with a little guidance, aren’t you?

2.  Try out support sites

Also, don’t forget the many technical support sites that have mushroomed to cater to users like you. Many of these sites are good enough to help you resolve not only basic technical snags, but some of the more complex ones that you may come up once in a while. Sites like support.microsoft.com, Help.com, suggestafix.com are some of the top resources that you can rely on. The only obstacle that may prevent you from trying out these information hubs is your reluctance to try other alternatives just because you have paid someone for that task. Yes, it is true to a large extent but is there any harm in having an open mind.

In cases where iyogi is handling your issues but does a less than satisfactory job, you certainly have reason to get crossed. The company must act swiftly to resolve iyogi complaints and not let customers suffer. The manner and promptness in which it manages iyogi complaints is actually a good indication of whether you can expect long-term beneficial relationship with the company or not. Evaluating these things you have to take a final call.

Voice calls are still the biggest complaint of cell users

J.D. Power and Associates is reporting in their U.S. 2011 Wireless Network Quality Performance Study that performance levels for networks differ greatly depending on whether devices are used for voice, text, or data. Voice calls are the most challenging for wireless customers, followed by data.

For data, slow downloads are the biggest complaint over connection failures or email problems. The same type of complaints are associated with calls, as audio quality has eclipsed dropped calls as the top concern.

“Based on the varying degree of consistency with overall network performance, it’s critical that wireless carriers continue to invest in improving both the voice quality and data connection-related issues that customers continue to experience,” said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and Associates.

The semiannual study is in its ninth year and has been expanded in 2011 to collect evaluations from wireless customers’ most recent usage activities in three areas that impact the network performance: calling, messaging and data. 

Highlights from the study:

• Call times have dropped from 527 minutes per month in 2009 to 450 in 2011 as texting becomes more popular.
• Smartphones are having more troubles than normal cell phones.
• Among the top 30 U.S. markets, average problem rates are lowest among wireless customers in the Salt Lake City market and highest among wireless customers in the Sacramento market.
  

Source: Techi

Sri Lankans complain against facebook

Sri Lankan officials said Wednesday that they have received more than 1,000 complaints against the social media network facebook.

The U.S.-based facebook is popular in Sri Lanka and is used extensively by locals both young and old as well as by several local institutions and companies.

However a Sri Lankan government-run agency said it continued to receive complaints of users abusing facebook by hacking into other people's accounts or copying images.

"We have received over 1,000 complaints against facebook. We advise facebook users to complain to the U.S. company if they feel their privacy has been violated. If facebook does not respond then we will investigate," Rohana Palliyaguru, senior information security engineer of the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Response unit told Xinhua.

The agency has been receiving complaints of people hacking into profiles of young girls and changing their status, taking their pictures and creating fake profiles and threatening users for ransom.

Officials also said that some of the most serious cases are being investigated by the Sri Lankan police criminal investigations unit.

Source : Phil Star

Got prompt response from the technician!

As I had mentioned in my previous post I had suffered a major hardware glitch in my system. I had to use the iYogi complaints form to let the tech experts know I was dissatisfied by the way they handled my case. Later on, I got a call from them and they managed to take care of and address my issue in a professional manner and then I came to know that iYogi does not offer support for hardware issues. I understood that iYogi provides remote tech support to the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. Their technicians are able to resolve a huge majority of tech support problems of people who struggle to locate and identify issues on their systems. I was glad to be associated with the firm, in my own small way. They are very prompt in all that they do.