Anyone else kind of over it?

[Fairclough]

Google has always had bad customer service, but there is nothing you can do.
Its a waiting game for me now.

 

[yellohj]

I am over it. Preordered the HTC One X+ yesterday, so once it ships I will forget this ever happened. I am on ATT and the N4 would have been a sacrifice anyway not to have LTE, but not to have HSPA+42 or a sd slot was too many things to overcome. I am not a latest and greatest. I am replacing an Experia Play that only has 400mb storage, and has to have sd card for any apps. unfortunately I have too many apps that are not sd, and out of space. It is so full that I can't even upgrade the Play Store on the phone

 

[raazman]

Wow guys calm down. To all the people "over it," you're probably disappointed with how Google handled the first release of this device. Why did you guys go in thinking that this will be an easy and smooth process when thousands and thousands of people will be trying to get one for themselves. I understand there are scalpers but there's no reason to ruffle your jimmies. Everyone that wants a nexus 4 will eventually get one.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Ziptied]

So before this you had the impression that Google had great customer service?

@_@

 

[natehoy]

Wasn't Nexus 7 available at other stores, not just Google Play, like Staples, Office Max, Best Buy?

The Nexus 7 launched used a pre-order system and a simultaneous brick-and-mortar launch. This, coupled with demand that far outstripped their supply, caused people to be on backorder waiting lists while their local stores had a (limited and sporadic) supply that was immediately available for the same price and no shipping charge. So a lot of people got understandably impatient and went to the local store to buy one, then refused the shipment of their pre-ordered unit.

Mistakes made:
- Accepting pre-orders (great judge of demand, but you can't adapt to high demand on a small-scale build anyway).
- Simultaneous launch in stores (they should have fulfilled their backorders and delayed the store launch by at least a week so their backorders and store demand weren't competing for stock and tying up multiple units to serve one customer).

For the Nexus 4 launch, they seem to have learned their lesson. The N4 launch looked like the launch of pretty much any unit where the demand far exceeded supply. Shopping cart system got wonky at very low supply levels ("well, we had one when it got into your cart, but now we're out, oh wait, we have one after all, oops - it's gone again!") and of course it sold out quickly. They they caused further confusion by taking any orders that got canceled due to people accidentally ordering 4-5 units because of shopping cart wonkiness and re-introducing them to stock in small batches, causing the shopping cart to remain wonky for quite a while (rather than just going immediately to "out of stock" and making those units available later).

It's actually pretty hard to design a shopping cart system that does a reasonable job of selling in a high-demand, low-stock situation. How long do you reserve units for potentially abandoned shopping carts? How do you tell the difference between someone who has abandoned their cart and someone who is just rifling through their wallet trying to find their credit card, or in that "do I really want this" indecision point?

Google's next launch would look a lot better if they learned lessons from both launches, and went something like the following:

1. Pre-announce about a month and a half out. Start accepting backorders immediately. If you can make 1,000 units a day and there are 45 days until launch day, the first 30,000 customers are guaranteed a ship date 2 weeks before official launch. Everyone else gets ship dates starting from there and rolling out one day for every 1,000 units sold. If demand is large enough, adjust manufacturing early and start shipping orders out before the promised dates.

2. Stop accepting backorders when demand reaches the point where you can fulfill all orders one week before the official cross-channel launch. Concentrate on getting units out to those customers while staging units at all your intended retail outlets. That means you won't have any customers with a unit on a UPS truck knowing that another unit is sitting at a retail store nearby.

Now all your customers who really, really, REALLY want one have them in their hands, and you are in a situation where you've learned what demand might be like and your launch will be more measured and controllable.

 

[zer0vette]

im not sure if it makes sense to dismiss a company that creates great products because they couldn't satisfy the entire world's "need" for instant gratification. There are times when one has to wait for things. It's not possible for everyone to have everything the moment it exists.

 

[Kamin]

im not sure if it makes sense to dismiss a company that creates great products because they couldn't satisfy the entire world's "need" for instant gratification. There are times when one has to wait for things. It's not possible for everyone to have everything the moment it exists.

I don't believe that is an accurate statement to be applied to most folks here. For me at least, it was totally about the unnecessarily frustrating ordering process. I wager a fair bet that most customers do not welcome such a frustrating experience.

 

[X0LARIUM]

Imagine our state my friend. Forget ordering, we don't even know when is it coming here in India and at what price.

#firstworldproblems

Sent from my RaZr HD.

 

[zer0vette]

I don't believe that is an accurate statement to be applied to most folks here. For me at least, it was totally about the unnecessarily frustrating ordering process. I wager a fair bet that most customers do not welcome such a frustrating experience.

id agree ordering was annoying, but, anytime there was any big release for an online only device websites also get smashed. I'm not web dev, but i'd be interested to see if it's even possible to avoid website slowdowns/problems with things like this.

 

[qreepii]

I work for a particular company named after a red fruit that I get to enjoy the customer blowback on launch day. To be honest I expected Google to be better prepared given their experience with the N7.

In short... Google, I am disappointed.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[gone down south]

This is one day a year for Google, the other 364 their Play Store works perfectly.

 

[Larswa]

Do what I did ... I live en DK.

Either use a US proxy server, or as I did, a rackspace server in the US, and order it from there. I also have a US forwarding address (40 USD a year).

This will enable you to buy from the US play store.

 

[Andrew Martonik]

This is one day a year for Google, the other 364 their Play Store works perfectly.

That doesnt excuse Google crashing and burning horribly trying to sell devices on that 1 day.

 

[qreepii]

That doesnt excuse Google crashing and burning horribly trying to sell devices on that 1 day.

The site issues don't bug me as much as the horrendous lack of inventory. The site could have crashed all day long if there were actually enough devices to last more than 20 minutes.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[Andrew Martonik]

The site issues don't bug me as much as the horrendous lack of inventory. The site could have crashed all day long if there were actually enough devices to last more than 20 minutes.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

Why would it matter if the servers couldnt stay up long enough to process an order or take a payment?

I agree they should've made more. Whether or not they could've made more isn't known. But again, that wouldn't excuse a super crashy Play Store when you go to buy one.