Rant ahead – ignore if you want:
Just spent two or three hours on the phone wasting time talking to the Kobo Reader helpdesk. They seem to have issued a software update a few weeks ago that broke all of their non-wireless readers. They chose not to tell any of us even though they have our e-mail addresses. Amazingly, I blamed myself and thought I was doing something wrong until I finally called. I should know better.
When you call they feign disinterest, apologize, and make you delete all old software and reinstall and do all sorts of other gymnastics. Our reader still won’t work and I can’t get the books we bought on to the reader. I am so mad and powerless. They made out a ticket for moving it up to tech support and they said they’d call back within a week but didn’t ask for my phone number so we’ll see!
I leave in a few hours for New Zealand and don’t get home for 3 weeks. My poor wife, Stephanie, will be reduced to reading hardcopies or dealing with this helpdesk alone!
Laughably their Silicon Sally voice attendant tells you to go to H T T P colon forward slash forward slash kobo dot senddesk dot com forward slash forums for more info and frequently asked questions!! At least I got a laugh out of that since senddesk wasn’t spelled out and it’s really zendesk! And who tells web users to use http:// anymore????
I’ll see if anything happens to fix this and keep you informed.
#FAIL!
Stephen
4 Responses
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I had that problem, but then I updated with the new software that became available last week and everything worked fine again. (I was updating through the Borders store). Oddly, I got a response through Kobo customer service when it was Borders that was ignoring me – I couldn’t get my newly purchased book downloaded from the library. But Kobo customer support emailed me right back and told me they were aware of the problem and would have the new software out within a few days; and they even sent me an email when the software was updated.
I have only seen the Kobo in Chapters and have not read any commentary on this, so thanks for writing about it. On the hardware side, does it have any virtues worth commenting on?
What’s your thinking about the competition between reading only devices (e.g. Kindle, Kobo, Nook) versus table computers (i.e. iPad, PlayBook etc)? I don’t have either one yet but I’m very much leaning toward the tablet but I’m not sure if I would want to read a book on such a device.
Bruce: I prefer my iPad over my Sony. The Kobo is Stephanie’s and she loves it.
Very good post of a #fail of level one support on a help desk. Just a note, however, I myself have come to having tell people to use “http://” after having been asked many times, usually in face to face meetings, where users are writing down a URL. “Here’s the address…” I say, which I am then asked, “Do I need ‘http://’?” It is asked *constantly.* It saddens me that it is, but it is. I can therefore see why they included it. 🙁