On the Motorola forums, I posted this email and I wanted to repeat it here. I hope to give people who are looking at the Bionic some idea what others have been through as they google the Bionic to get buying advice. I am not on a mission to put down Motorola, but I do want to get the information out to everyone that I can before they buy. I wish more information had been available for me before I bought.
Here is what I posted on the Motorola Forum, along with a couple added comments that I made. Feel welcome to disagree, this is just my experience.
THis will be long enough that I am sure many of you won't read it. Nevertheless, here it is. I am not trying to be a disruptive force, this is my honest summation of the Bionic and Motorola. Every company makes lemons. The Bionic is Motorola's. I do think that with 5.9.902, the Bionic will be an OK phone. Not a great phone, but finally will be an OK phone that will get the job done for most folks. I know that we all want to believe it is better than that because we all invested a good deal of money in the phone and that is how consumers want to be. I also think that Motorola is company that makes, in general, very good smartphones. The Bionic just isn't one of them. I would even say that in terms of hardware, Motorola is as good as any smartphone company. But before Motorola dislocates any arms patting itself on the back for 5.9.902, I have a few observations to make. 1. It is simply too late. Way too late. Six months to come up with a fix for a phone like this one is ridiculous on any level. Especially when you consider that other phones, introduced after the Bionic, had significant updates well before the Bionic. That is a very sad deal. 2. The Bionic is not a success because of the customer service attitude at Motorola, not because of their technical ability. That is also why, if it goes unchanged, Motorola will continue to decline in revenue and popularity. Clearly, they have the technical ability make the best phones. The problem is that somewhere they have left any concern for the customer out of their picture. I don't think that they dislike the customer, not at all. They just don't put the customers needs very highly. You see it everywhere with Motorola. Even on this forum, if you sit back and look, it is all about Motorola, not about the customer. That is how American companies used to act (look at the car industry) until they were outdone by the Asian companies. And the difference in the car industry was both technology and customer service issues. Motorola does not have the thechnical shortcomings and could be the dominate company very easily. They just need to shake the company up and put the customer first. There are so many examples of Motorola's company first-customer last philosophy that it would take me pages to give them to you. I see it on the forum too. Now that doesn't make Matt, Mark or Dan, or any Motorola people bad people. THey are good people. They are just sunk in a company that has developed a very poor customer service orientation in their every day activities. It is just part of the company now. Other divisions of Motoroal are going through the same thing but they are at least aware of it and are working on it. To me, it so clear. Why is Motorola losing money when they have the best technology? It isn't the economy folks, smartphones are selling like crazy. During my frustration with the Bionic, I contacted both Motorola and Verizon. What a difference. Motorola said they were sorry. That is it. They said they were sorry that I was uspset. After that they turn to stone. The first thing out of the Verizon executive was, You tell me what I need to do to make this right for you. What a huge difference. I am shocked that Motorola can not see that. I am a student, so to speak, of the fall of the US industries in the 90's. THis is classic chronology of what happened to the car industry during that period. THere was a big revolution at that time in American Industry (supposedly led by the Japanese, but actually led by the American that taught customer service to the Japenese) that changed a lot of the US industry. Interestingly, Mototorla was a company that was very ivolved in that revolution and they made significant strides in customer relations and as a result in their company AT THAT TIME. But over time we all forget and Motorola has forgotten. I hope that they listen. Not just to me, but to many other people telling them the same thing. We need the Motorola's and we certainly need the jobs. I want Motorola to be good but the reality is that right now they have serious issues. Here is to the hope that they can change however.
Here is another thing to keep in mind as you all post how wonderful this last update was. A little while back someone here posted that he had been told by a verizon tech that the next bionic update was scheduled for the second week of Feb. I think it was in the first couple days of January. Go back and look, you can find it. He was beat up pretty badly, the essence of the posts from all of you was that he was wrong and that it would never take that long..............and that it better not. As i recall, the forum manager even stepped in to tell him he was wrong. Well............guess what. Turns out he wasn't wrong. I remember back then how upset everyone was with the delay. It wouldn't be acceptable............we will never be ok with that long a wait. But apparently we are. I predicted that in a post about the same time. Only i guess that i'm really not ok with it though. Yes my bionic is ok, but motorola is not and as we discussef earlier i am still working to see that motorola changes some policies. I hope some of you will too. I have spoken to moto exec's and verizon exec's and there are things that as customers that we can do to force some change. Contact moto and verizon and tell them how you feel about it. It does make a difference.
Thank you for the nice comment. I appreciate your defense of Matt. I honestly am not trying to impinge upon his credibility in any manner and I like the guy too. Nevertheless, I do believe that Motorola keeps him in the dark as much as they do us. I have been speaking to some Motorola people "behind the scenes" so to speak, and I am impressed with how polite and nice they are but as I said earlier, they are only good at saying they are sorry, they are not authorized in any form to fix anything. Even the most minor of accommodations are not within their authority. I was amazed to hear that one of the main customer service employees can not do anything for a customer without approval from higher executive staff. Keep that in mind if you have an issue with your Bionic. You can go up the chain, but no one, except at levels you normally can not get to, can approve any type of resolution whatsoever. They can however, apologize to you for what you have been through. I guess that is something....................well................. ..maybe not. Anyway, I don't make this up, I have spoken with them.
What Matt actually said in response to that post was:
"This may have come from our agents, but it is not official and not correct. "
Just wanted to make sure the information was accurate.
Here is what I posted on the Motorola Forum, along with a couple added comments that I made. Feel welcome to disagree, this is just my experience.
THis will be long enough that I am sure many of you won't read it. Nevertheless, here it is. I am not trying to be a disruptive force, this is my honest summation of the Bionic and Motorola. Every company makes lemons. The Bionic is Motorola's. I do think that with 5.9.902, the Bionic will be an OK phone. Not a great phone, but finally will be an OK phone that will get the job done for most folks. I know that we all want to believe it is better than that because we all invested a good deal of money in the phone and that is how consumers want to be. I also think that Motorola is company that makes, in general, very good smartphones. The Bionic just isn't one of them. I would even say that in terms of hardware, Motorola is as good as any smartphone company. But before Motorola dislocates any arms patting itself on the back for 5.9.902, I have a few observations to make. 1. It is simply too late. Way too late. Six months to come up with a fix for a phone like this one is ridiculous on any level. Especially when you consider that other phones, introduced after the Bionic, had significant updates well before the Bionic. That is a very sad deal. 2. The Bionic is not a success because of the customer service attitude at Motorola, not because of their technical ability. That is also why, if it goes unchanged, Motorola will continue to decline in revenue and popularity. Clearly, they have the technical ability make the best phones. The problem is that somewhere they have left any concern for the customer out of their picture. I don't think that they dislike the customer, not at all. They just don't put the customers needs very highly. You see it everywhere with Motorola. Even on this forum, if you sit back and look, it is all about Motorola, not about the customer. That is how American companies used to act (look at the car industry) until they were outdone by the Asian companies. And the difference in the car industry was both technology and customer service issues. Motorola does not have the thechnical shortcomings and could be the dominate company very easily. They just need to shake the company up and put the customer first. There are so many examples of Motorola's company first-customer last philosophy that it would take me pages to give them to you. I see it on the forum too. Now that doesn't make Matt, Mark or Dan, or any Motorola people bad people. THey are good people. They are just sunk in a company that has developed a very poor customer service orientation in their every day activities. It is just part of the company now. Other divisions of Motoroal are going through the same thing but they are at least aware of it and are working on it. To me, it so clear. Why is Motorola losing money when they have the best technology? It isn't the economy folks, smartphones are selling like crazy. During my frustration with the Bionic, I contacted both Motorola and Verizon. What a difference. Motorola said they were sorry. That is it. They said they were sorry that I was uspset. After that they turn to stone. The first thing out of the Verizon executive was, You tell me what I need to do to make this right for you. What a huge difference. I am shocked that Motorola can not see that. I am a student, so to speak, of the fall of the US industries in the 90's. THis is classic chronology of what happened to the car industry during that period. THere was a big revolution at that time in American Industry (supposedly led by the Japanese, but actually led by the American that taught customer service to the Japenese) that changed a lot of the US industry. Interestingly, Mototorla was a company that was very ivolved in that revolution and they made significant strides in customer relations and as a result in their company AT THAT TIME. But over time we all forget and Motorola has forgotten. I hope that they listen. Not just to me, but to many other people telling them the same thing. We need the Motorola's and we certainly need the jobs. I want Motorola to be good but the reality is that right now they have serious issues. Here is to the hope that they can change however.
Here is another thing to keep in mind as you all post how wonderful this last update was. A little while back someone here posted that he had been told by a verizon tech that the next bionic update was scheduled for the second week of Feb. I think it was in the first couple days of January. Go back and look, you can find it. He was beat up pretty badly, the essence of the posts from all of you was that he was wrong and that it would never take that long..............and that it better not. As i recall, the forum manager even stepped in to tell him he was wrong. Well............guess what. Turns out he wasn't wrong. I remember back then how upset everyone was with the delay. It wouldn't be acceptable............we will never be ok with that long a wait. But apparently we are. I predicted that in a post about the same time. Only i guess that i'm really not ok with it though. Yes my bionic is ok, but motorola is not and as we discussef earlier i am still working to see that motorola changes some policies. I hope some of you will too. I have spoken to moto exec's and verizon exec's and there are things that as customers that we can do to force some change. Contact moto and verizon and tell them how you feel about it. It does make a difference.
Thank you for the nice comment. I appreciate your defense of Matt. I honestly am not trying to impinge upon his credibility in any manner and I like the guy too. Nevertheless, I do believe that Motorola keeps him in the dark as much as they do us. I have been speaking to some Motorola people "behind the scenes" so to speak, and I am impressed with how polite and nice they are but as I said earlier, they are only good at saying they are sorry, they are not authorized in any form to fix anything. Even the most minor of accommodations are not within their authority. I was amazed to hear that one of the main customer service employees can not do anything for a customer without approval from higher executive staff. Keep that in mind if you have an issue with your Bionic. You can go up the chain, but no one, except at levels you normally can not get to, can approve any type of resolution whatsoever. They can however, apologize to you for what you have been through. I guess that is something....................well................. ..maybe not. Anyway, I don't make this up, I have spoken with them.
What Matt actually said in response to that post was:
"This may have come from our agents, but it is not official and not correct. "
Just wanted to make sure the information was accurate.
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