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Chris
Less friction, more traction. Opinions are mine alone.

Unwearable: Part 2

The Fitbit Community Speaks

“Quality is not what happens when what you do matches your intentions. It is what happens when what you do matches your customers’ expectations.” ~Guaspari

When I posted my original story about how I quit Fitbit, I simply wanted to share my experience with the Medium community. I also cross-posted my story under “Share Your Story” here on the Fitbit forums.

I didn’t anticipate the discussion my Fitbit forums post would generate, or the variety of responses. I cross-posted my story on the Fitbit forums under “Share Your Story” here, and was sad to see that many others identified with the issues I found with the Charge HR. Many, like me, are looking for alternatives.

However, one response confounded me. Live4him wrote the following post:

Live4him’s post on the Fitbit forums

Here’s my response:

Hi Live4him,

I appreciate that you want to stick to a certain brand. I found it difficult to leave Fitbit as well, since I really missed the community of friends who encouraged me to be active every day. That’s one of the best parts of Fitbit.

However, I must say I do not understand it when people give their loyalty to a company that makes no discernable effort to improve the reliability of their hardware. When product generation after product generation still has the same defects.

I guess I remember a time when companies would bend over backwards to make sure their products worked, and worked well. A time when if they made a mistake, they would own it, and take the steps (see what I did there?) to not only make it right, but go beyond and make sure it never happened again.

I think I understand why companies don’t do that any more. Why would they, when they have people who will keep coming back to them for table scraps? Please understand, I am not putting you down. I simply believe we as consumers should expect more from a company than 25% off on my giving them more of my money for potentially defective gear. You’ve already had three defects (two on your Charge and one on your NEW Blaze). How many more will you be willing to endure?

Would you feel differently if it had been your car’s steering wheel which broke off instead of the button (the main interface on the Charge by the way) on your Charge? Or how about if your air conditioning heated instead of cooled? Does your tolerance and patience for product defects change based on what category of product it is?

You say you found Fitbit customer service to be prompt and courteous. I’m glad. But I have to say, them being “prompt” and “courteous” is table stakes. They are supposed to do that. My experience? The customer service rep literally read me the specs of their as-yet unreleased Blaze and encouraged me to try it. Let me be clear: she was suggesting that I spend a full $100 more than I had spent on three sequentially defective Charge HRs. Their customer service department actually encouraged me to replace my Charge HR by:

  1. Packing it up,
  2. Mailing it (at my expense) to them, and
  3. Waiting for them to ship me one back.

This whole process, instead of my simply returning it to the local Best Buy I bought it from a day before. That’s right — 2 of the Charge HRs were defective within one day of my receiving it. The third? The same issue you had- the battery not lasting even a day, let alone 5.

To me, saying you’ll stick with a company that has good customer service but defective products is like saying you’re happy to stay on a trans-Atlantic cruise ship that has leaks but really dedicated sailors bailing out the ship. Why not move to a ship that doesn’t have holes in it?