Tom HaakFeaturing the Coolblue and Fitbit service desks
I was in the market for an activity tracker. After some research I ordered the Fitbit Charge HR (HR for Heart Rate, not Human Resources). On March 15, 2015, I ordered the tracker online at Coolblue. I had ordered other articles at Coolblue, and I was happy with their service (if you order on Saturday before 11 pm, they deliver on Sunday). The delivery of the Fitbit was not so smooth (the site promised March 16, the confirmation e-mail March 17 but the actual delivery date was March 20). No real issue. Below you see the daily number of steps I took, my first real Fitbit day was March 21.
The recommended number of daily steps is 10,000, and for nine days I managed to reach the target. On March 28 I wanted to charge my tracker, and I was unable to find the charging cable. The hotel where I stayed a couple of nights in the week of March 22 could not find the cable. The Fitbit charging cable is a tiny cable, on one site an USB plug, on the other side a unique Fitbit plug (why??). I had to order a new cable online. Then the agony started. Coolblue does not sell the cable separately; neither do the other suppliers I was able to check. Fitbit does, but when I went to the Fitbit.com site I was routed to the Fitbit UK store, and this store is for UK citizens only. No delivery outside UK. Next step: a call to the Coolblue service desk, and an e-mail to Fitbit. Coolblue confirmed they did not sell the cable, but the service desk person would look into the matter and come back to me.
I will not bother you with all the details of the story, but what follows is a week with e-mails between me and Coolblue and Fitbit. How did they help me to solve my problem?
Coolblue: Coolblue was not willing to solve the problem. They referred to Fitbit, and when I informed them that Fitbit could not deliver in the Netherlands (also confirmed by Fitbit) they informed me this was an unfortunate situation, but that they could not help me. I suggested they take the cable out of another Fitbit Charge HR, but this simple solution was probably too expensive. They rather save some Euros than help a customer. The slogan of Coolblue is “Everything for a smile”, but when the going gets a little bit tough, Coolblue leaves their customer in the cold (at least this customer). Later, when I informed them Fitbit most likely has solved the problem, they send me a voucher for EUR 10,- reduction on my next order. Really helpful…
Fitbit: Interestingly my case ended at the desk of two service desk employees, probably because I mailed via the website and via mail directly. The best Team 1 could do was to suggest to me I find a friend in the UK who could order the cable for me in the UK, and then mail it to me. After my negative response to this suggestion, Team 1 informed me that no solution was possible. (“Unfortunately, at this time we are not shipping directly to Netherlands. We hope to make all Fitbit products available for international orders soon, and will post to our website and blog as soon as we have the capability to do that”).
Team 2 (“Claudia H. and the Fitbit team”) took more responsibility. Claudia promised to send me a new cable (“Thank you for getting back to us and let us know more details about this inconvenience. We’d be happy to send you a complimentary Charge HR Charging cable replacement as a one time exception”). I have not received the new cable yet (we are now eight days after I started this little “buy a simple charging cable” project), but at least the promise from Claudia is there.
Some questions:
- Fitbit seems to have a design issue. Why design your product with a unique charging cable? More people are bound to loose their cable, and they do not want the hassle I described above.
- Why does Fitbit make it difficult to order accessories on their website in the UK to be delivered in The Netherlands?
- How big is the Fitbit Service Desk? Is this service desk outsourced? How is it possible there is no consistent empowerment and service level at the Fitbit service desk?
- Why are the Coolblue service desk employees not empowered to offer customers solutions? I understand that for new products accessories are not on sale immediately, but why a customer who bought the product at Coolblue is not offered a solution I cannot understand.
It is nice you can deliver on Sunday, but in the end it is about the complete customer experience, not just the sale.
I hope to be back on track with my Fitbit Charge HR before the end of this month. In the meantime I use my iPhone, as I used to do. The iPhone also has a unique charging cable, but this cable can be bought everywhere.
What happened next? (written September 13, 2015)
- After the above blog post both Coolblue and Fitbit came into action, and I ended up with three Fitbit charge cables.
- In an interaction with Coolblue via Twitter I mentioned that I would start my own little shop with the spare cable: “difficulttofindchargecables.com”.
- After a couple of weeks someone send me a message, if I had started my shop, as she lost her Fitbit Charge Cable as well; I mailed her one cable.
- In the meantime I have recommended the Fitbit Charge HR to several people, and at least four people I know have bought one. I am still very happy with the product.
- I checked the Coolblue site, and the charge cable is now for sale separately.
