Ionic feedback

[SunsetRunner]

I don’t appreciate Fitbit censoring people’s questions on the forums so am reposting my last post they deleted or moved.

My Ionic got bricked by the update so Fitbit is sending me a new one. I sent the broken one back on March 22nd and have yet to get the replacement. Has anyone else ran into this. It was suppose to arrive last week and the tracking number keeps getting pushed out. I’ve been without the product for 19 days which just seems like an absurd amount of time based on my experience with other companies. Has anyone else had this same experience?

Moderator edit: Updated subject for clarity 

[Colinm39]

@SunsetRunnerThere is something odd going on there, because I have had the reverse. I just received a replacement Ionic in 3 business days to Australia from overseas. It came via the factory in China, Hong Kong and then Melbourne, Australia....  Left Last Thursday and I was setting in up on Monday afternoon. 

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

I don’t appreciate Fitbit censoring people’s questions on the forums so am reposting my last post they deleted or moved.

My Ionic got bricked by the update so Fitbit is sending me a new one. I sent the broken one back on March 22nd and have yet to get the replacement. Has anyone else ran into this. It was suppose to arrive last week and the tracking number keeps getting pushed out. I’ve been without the product for 19 days which just seems like an absurd amount of time based on my experience with other companies. Has anyone else had this same experience?

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[Lufalulz]

I've heard customer service is really good. But they can only be as good as the companies they work with.

That might be the reason as to why it takes just three days to get something from China to Australia but a lot more to take something from their United States warehouse to your address. I'm assuming the shipping companies are different.

I don't really think its their fault that it took who knows how many days for the shipping company to return the device to them first before they were able to send the replacement, but since that's just an opinion, it's up to anyone to s&&t on whomever they want to $hit on.

[Colinm39]

@LufalulzIt was Fedex and excellent tracking service... I was surprised my replacement came from China...(Fitbit International)

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@Lufalulz wrote:

I've heard customer service is really good. But they can only be as good as the companies they work with.

That might be the reason as to why it takes just three days to get something from China to Australia but a lot more to take something from their United States warehouse to your address. I'm assuming the shipping companies are different.

I don't really think its their fault that it took who knows how many days for the shipping company to return the device to them first before they were able to send the replacement, but since that's just an opinion, it's up to anyone to s&&t on whomever they want to $hit on.

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[Lufalulz]

@Colinm39 So maybe FedEx is more efficient there. That's interesting!

[Colinm39]

@LufalulzI have found Fitbit with Fedex to be very efficient.. I had a Blaze replaced because of scratched glass and my first Surge they accidentally sent me the short band, all Fedex from USA to Australia..

All were replaced withing 3-4 business days and no loss of use while I awaited.  I purchased a band extender for the Surge. and... ironically...... that gave the band the air separation on the sides of the wrist to stop the irritation...

The replacement Ionic is performing well on the battery, even though it's only 2 days....... it's consuming 0.42%/HR. I don't have  All day sync set, but I have ALL notifications... and manual wake and switch the phone off while I sleep. My original Ionic is consuming at 0.62% after 4+ days.. A triple restart corrected that problem but my real issue was the GPS stopped, and using Fitbit Support via the email service was excellent..

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@Lufalulz wrote:

@Colinm39 So maybe FedEx is more efficient there. That's interesting!

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[Giampi71]

I also find the Fitbit support really excellent both in terms of assistance via email (or Twitter) and when sending replacements. I once lost my Fitbit Zip and they sent me a new one free of charge! Top notch!

[SunsetRunner]

I'm glad everyone else is having good experiences.  I've had to deal with their customer service on three separate product/issues over the years and each time has been horrible.  They're great at responding and making statements; but not on actually providing any clarity. They used Fedex to ship the product (which we're now on day 21 of nothing showing up). Tracking had it showing up last Friday, then Tuesday, now today so we'll see.  The product sat in a warehouse for 3 days without movement according to the tracking history. My history with Microsoft, Samsung and Apple is that a new product shows up within a couple of days so this has been a disappointing experience that was already disappointing from the watch breaking upon updating to the current software install.

[Cantryboy]

Fitbit customer service has always been exceptional to me. Whenever runs their Twitter account is A+

[bbarrera]

I've had Fitbit send replacements, even when it was clearly a firmware issue and not hardware. In my experience, Fitbit support rarely admits to firmware or software issues and immediately jumps to replacing.  Even on these forums it is seemingly impossible to get Fitbit to clearly state that stride is somehow used to calculate distance even when tracking with GPS. Simply put, Fitbit is long on sympathy and short on honest answers.

Fitbit support is clearly trained to excel at positivity and pleasant interactions. However I find my technical issues are (usually) not addressed honestly and quickly. Instead the underlying issue is avoided, and the conversation is redirected to positive statements. That is very frustrating, and makes me feel that Fitbit is wasting my time.

[SunsetRunner]

You summed up my feelings really well.

[Lufalulz]

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@bbarrera wrote:

Even on these forums it is seemingly impossible to get Fitbit to clearly state that stride is somehow used to calculate distance even when tracking with GPS. Simply put, Fitbit is long on sympathy and short on honest answers.

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While I agree with everything that you said. I'm not so sure that it's the stride length what's used to calculate the distance in those cases.

I inadvertently left my Fitbit account open in a friend's iPhone and this person changed my user name to "Goodbye Poop", trashed my exercise shortcuts and changed my stride length to 2.4 meters. It took me forever to find out that last one because I've never used a custom stride length but during those couple days of inaccuracy, my walks with GPS had the right distance.

My Ionic's GPS has always been very good even when my stride length was clearly off so that says something.

Also, there's the fact that Fitbit algorithm never goes Stride Length > GPS because they even use the GPS distance to automatically adjust the default stride length.

By the way, it takes 60 days before you can change your name in the App again

[Lullabug]

I agree that Support dislikes admitting to any product flaws - my Ionic died on the 29th of March due to what I think was pressure issues (went on a flight, the Ionic died not even 24 hours later after a shower, so I suspect somehow the pressure caused miniature cracks in the chassis and admitted water to the device). I asked if that were possible, and what I should avoid in the future, and just got a "we'll replace it."

However, I have to say having purchased a Samsung Gear Fit2Pro as a backup (which I actually really like for everything EXCEPT comfort (good god is this band hard and unpleasant) and calorie tracking (stupid app design for that, constantly says I'm over goal because it tracks by the minute...) that Samsung's customer services is ABYSMAL in comparison. Reps often speak broken English and struggle to understand sentences if they're too long/complex. Can't get an answer because nobody knows the product. Simple questions get deferred to phone support. It's horrid. All around, Fitbit's Support is heads and above Samsung's, so I can't complain there.

[Lufalulz]

I think that's related to the fact that they're essentially working through third parties.

It's easier for the company to share some information with the BPO companies who hire people in Philippines or any other Asian? country and train the people on how to follow their policies.

If you pay close attention to reviews, most of them are have two roots:

Policies (Which could generate very good and very bad reviews and have really nothing to do with what the agents do).

And then there's the product.

If you ask a customer service representative if getting the Ionic to such a high altitude could cause it to break and they don't know who to answer that then they might be very bad agents who don't know their product, but it could also be that they have pretty standard tools to figure those things out (like product manuals and help articles) without really having first touch contact with the manufacturer.

It seems like it's just because of the way the business is handled.

You have a lot of people who work representing Samsung or Fitbit but never really work for Samsung or Fitbit. Therefore, they may not have full access to the information that they need to proactively do their job. At the same time you have the manufacturer, Samsung or Fitbit, which really shouldn't be disclosing that many details to third parties who are just supposed to provide standard "try whats on the website if it doesn't work let's go ahead and replace it" customer support.

[SunsetRunner]

I actually had good experience with them (Samsung).  I have the iconx headphones (awesome headphones) and they broke right after the warranty.  They still approved it and had a totally new version that was also their 2018 release sent within 3 days.  Getting to the new product was painful; but at least I got a new product.  I just got my replacement and I can tell it's refurbished and already has a little chip.  So the replacement came in worse physical condition than my watch.

[thunderwagn]

I'll agree with the OP and several others here. Fitbit MAY offer decent customer service, but they also have issues fessing up to problems with their products. The Aria is a perfect example...and so is the stair counter on the ionic...

[Lullabug]

Lufalulz, that's a fair point re: third parties contracting to provide support. I definitely understand the reasons behind the particular method of response. Unfortunately I think when dealing with an advanced piece of tech that's worn for sport, you run into a certain set of problems that could be avoided with a dedicated sport tracker team, which Fitbit has a bit more of than a company like Samsung, whose primary devices aren't sport devices. Though I will say I'm usually pretty patient with this as I worked in IT, so I'm accustomed to dealing with third parties. I only really start complaining if I say something like "Can you tell me where to buy a replacement band?" and the person responding says "no". Those things, to me, are pretty simple customer service questions that any person could answer. Or, for example, "can you explain how to restart the device?" If you can't answer those, I start feeling the service is shoddy. That's where Samsung is compared to Fitbit, if that makes sense.

[Lufalulz]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

I just got my replacement and I can tell it's refurbished and already has a little chip.  So the replacement came in worse physical condition than my watch.

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Well that, definitely sucks. I am assuming you actually contacted them back because even if somehow the use older devices and repair them to send the replacements, it really shouldn't have physical damage there, even if it's just a little chip.

[SunsetRunner]

may i add that the customer service is really good indeed....at sending replacements.

i haven't seen a product support forum so filled up with replacement topics and posts, as this one.

sad but true. the ionic was the first ever product i purchased and sent back dead as a brick for replacement, in 25+ years. unbelieveable.