Lack of Reply from Staffers on the Forum or Action to Suggested Improvements

[SunsetRunner]

I would like to share with you all a letter sent to various parties in the Fit Bit Organization with regards to the lack of participation from Fit Bit professionals when we ask for fixes, make suggestions, or describe improvements.  I have been writing on this forum for over a year and got one reply  about two weeks ago, and the Engineer said he didn't know when I had made the post, but it was a "Closed Subject" at this point.  Please chime in.........

Dear Fit Bit Team,

Thank you for your timely response.

I have already discussed this on two separate previous calls with your Support Staffers, and was hoping for a different answer or outcome. In those conversations I was told in so many words that I can pretty much assume no further effort towards improvement or development or patches will be produced for either the Fit Bit Charge or the Fit Bit Blaze (and older models.

I was informed that the efforts of your Development Team are primarily focused and concerned with development and implementation of the newer release of your product lines (which include said suggestions and improvements, and functionalities desired by SO MANY USERS WHO ALREADY HAVE A FIT BIT PRODUCT) all to be implemented into the newer product, the "Ionic".

If you are not aware of the fact, the user's of the Ionic get to enjoy all the features that we in the forum have been literally suggesting and asking about for years. Please see the link: https://blog.fitbit.com/fitbit-os-update/

So it seems I am supposed to ditch my $200 Fit Bit Blaze for a "Ionic" in order to get these options that could just have easily been adopted to the Blaze and other models? I don't think so.

I have been an IT Engineer of over 23 years, and I can assure you it's not that hard to modify what they have done to implement a lot of the same features in the Blaze with updates so they have similar functionality as they did with the Ionic; so why don't they? Because we are supposed to all throw away our Blazes, and our Charges, and run out and buy a Ionic so we can have that functionality that we asked for a year or two ago?

Now that you have sold me 2 of your products, collected my PHI (Personal Health Information) for marketing purposes and Data Resale, your interest in keeping "Satisfied Customers" is secondary and it appears obvious that your business model is to not to perform any upgrades and make everyone buy an Ionic or the "Latest and Greatest Fit Bit Device", but it seems that you have taken the suggestions on your forums from the customers reaching out for bug fixes and improvements and instead of answering them, developing a fix, and releasing it.

All you need to do is simply collect, correlate and do Warehouse analytics on the most prevalent ideas, and then build your newer product around the information rather than improve your old one that everyone has paid good money for and is expecting a reply, improvement and some actual action and support on.

You may have blundered here and underestimated that it would upset many that have been ignored that still possess the existing sold "Expensive" and "Unsupported" Fit Bit equipment and resultant bad publicity for your product name.

Well I can assure you I for one will never buy a Fit Bit product again as it is plain that you choose to ignore anyone whom has already purchased a product when it comes to bug fixes, updates, and improvements, etc. I will also give the appropriate feedback online and personally so as to protect my fellow consumers, contact and inform your Health Solution Partners, and basically protect all of us who spend $200 on a fitness product that will NEVER BE IMPROVED OR BUGS BE FIXED.

If you bothered to check the forums you would see this is a prevalent and trending opinion amongst the majority of consumers whom have bought your product and who rightly expect to be heard and recieve feedback… Sadly your Teams have chosen to ignore EVERONE.

I have submitted several suggestions, questions, and informational requests over Forums that were supposed to be monitored and answered/participated in by your Development and Support personnel. I just heard from an engineer about 11 months after my first of many postings on the watch face subject (and others).

I would discourage you from such correspondence such as that you have replied with below however, as it seems to actually "infer intent to get around to improving and doing more development on these older models such as the Charge and the Blaze. It's a little too late to start trying to deliver a suggestion that has been being asked for easily over the period of a year by a great many people. Many have stated plainly on your forum their intent to get rid of your product for others that DO SUPPORT theirs.

Best of luck in your future stock prices and overall sales.

A.J. Lebeau

Computer Network Systems Administrator/Engineer

M.C.S.E., M.C.P. + I., M.C.P., CompTIA+

From Fit Bit Support: 

Hello AJ, We appreciate you attaching the conversations coming from our community forums. To answer your query, we haven't receive any updates yet as to when will our product development team will release new versions for the clock faces of the Blaze. Rest assured that once our development team will be able to release new versions, they will be able to update you via the community forum where you have participated with. But we don't have an estimated time frame on when will it be. We appreciate your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Let us know if you have additional inquiries. Sincerely,

 the Fitbit Team

[Rich_Laue]

Thank you for sharing this with the community of Fitbit users. I see about 16 paragraphs and not one word about which features that could have easily been added. 

Have you read the Feature Suggestion FAQ

 Please remember that these forums are meant to be community forums. And usually questions are answered by Fitbit users, not Fitbit employees. 

Fitbit never said everything suggested will be added. 

I'm not sure if your referring to having an app store for eve Blaze. Since the Bla, e had limited memory and does not run a true OS this is out of the question for now.