As I've complained here, my Surge Band like so many other owners is failing. I called Fitbit customer service, and the rep could see it was in warranty and simply offered to send me another (in is now in route). I was not asked to mail my Surge with the band band back. He also offered me 30 days to make a purchase with the 25% discount. So, I'd say Fitbit was responsive and my experience was a positive one.
However, when getting a warranty replacement I asked if I could trade down and get a Blaze. I really like the gps in the Surge and use it a lot and the Blaze does not have the feature, but the Blaze has replaceable bands so when a band fails you can simply replace it with a new band. If your Surge band fails, nothing can be done. You cannot replace this band and Fitbit will not repair it even if you offer to pay them. The customer service rep explained that it it Fitbit's policy not to replace a product with a different one. I responded by telling him that a policy is nothing more that a decision that a company chooses to make, but in this case their policy is not in the customer's best interest. The customer service rep also told me that Fitbit is aware of the tsunami of unhappy customers and they hope to equip the Surge with a more robust band in the future, not sure when though. I said that's great, but offering customers that bought the flawed Surge a 25% discount is not good enough and I'll give a contrasting point below that will relate to the Surge.
I have a 2008 Toyota which my job puts me traveling on the highway and I've a got a ton of miles on the car. I don't want a new car because my high-milage lifestyle means spending money on nice new cars is a waste. So my car is 8 years old with 175k miles and that means it is well out of warranty. I recently noticed that the dashboard is cracking and I was thinking about either buying a dash cover or paying to replace the dash. Well what do you know, but I recently got a letter from Toyota notifying me of them recalling my Toyota over the cracked dash issue. I though wow, this car is old and high milage and Toyota is taking responsibility for using shoddy parts and offering to repair older cars. I've been driving Toyotas now for over 20 years and when it is finally time to get another car it to will probably be a Toyota. There gesture of goodwill is important to me. Fitbit knows that they made a substandard wristband on the Surge. The right think for them to do is fix the band issue and offer to replace the faulty part for free for any customer that bought one. It would go a long way of fostering customer loyalty.
In closing, I'm pretty happy with my experience yesterday. I'm trying to get as much life out of my first Surge by using gaffers tape where the band is splitting, but it will ultimately fail and so will the new one. They probably will not send another after that.
Moderator Edit: Clarified subject
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