A-SUS, ginoo ko! (A horrendous ASUS customer service and after-sales support experience)

It has been five long weeks since my brand new Asus Zenfone 2 (ZE551ML) malfunctioned. I want to take a moment to review what happened thus far. Read on. You might learn a lesson or two.

One time while I was downloading some applications, the screen suddenly froze. I tried to power off the phone by pressing and then holding the power button, but that didn’t seem to work. Took a few minutes of struggling, figuring it out how to turn it off before all of a sudden it just finally did. Little did I know that it was the last time I was going to be able to use my phone. Ever since, every time I power it back on, all the screen would show was just some kind of a USB logo (see illustration 1). My brand new Asus phone, busted after just one week of regular use, and by regular I mean just the usual texting, downloading, games, music and internet browsing.

Illustration 1: Asus Zenfone 2 stuck on USB logo

I thought of having it replaced, but it has been more than seven days since I bought the phone by the time it got broken. You see, here in our country there is a common belief that you only have until that time to have defective merchandises you’ve purchased to have it returned or exchanged (but surprisingly when I searched about it on the internet, it turned out to be false. Anyone who can enlighten me about this subject, which I believe is the “Consumer Act of the Philippines,” feel free to do so).

So naturally, I opted for my next best option: going to the service center. Paid a visit to one of the Asus stores in SM North-EDSA mall in Quezon City to ask where their service centers are, and was advised that they had one in Cubao, also within the same city.

As soon as I had the time, I was finally able to make the two to three hour trip from my home in Laguna City to Cubao. Unfortunately, when I finally got to the service center in Cubao called Aikontech, it was closed. “The store is closed due to the company outing. Sorry for the inconvenience,” the note on the front door said. Just my luck.

Instead of going home and then back again, which will end up being more tiresome, I opted to lounge some place nearby until the store opens the following day. And when I did arrive there just fifteen minutes after the store just opened, the waiting line was long already. Not surprising, since there was just one employee attending to the customers. Took another fifteen to thirty minutes actually before another staff got there to help out. By then, I was already getting a bad impression from that service center.

Fortunately for me, there was another customer who got ahead of me in line waiting, with the very same exact concern. We chatted for a few minutes while waiting for our turn to be called.

Shockingly, the whole ten to fifteen we waited there, we’ve managed to hear A LOT of complaints regarding the service center from the other customers who were waiting in line. Some said they were already on their second or third trip back to that store, complaining that their phone was still malfunctioning after having it repaired. And more worryingly, some even said that they still haven’t gotten their phones fixed to the point that their six-month warranty have already expired since they surrendered their phones to Aikontech. There was even this particular scene where one of the customers was already shouting at the store staff out of sheer frustration, saying out loud that he couldn’t believe the store would make such a stupid mistake of notifying him through SMS that his phone is already repaired, only to find out in the end that it wasn’t really the case and his phone is still in the process of being fixed. And, as if to validate all my doubts that’ve been increasing since I arrived there, the person whom I talked to, the one with the exact same problem I have encountered, got called for his turn to take to the store employee, only to be told that he’d have to wait twenty one days at the earliest, without ANY guarantee whatsoever that his phone will be repaired.

No person in his right mind would still consider surrendering his phone, after having gone through everything I’ve experienced while I was in Aikontech, was what I thought.

When I got back home, I immediately resumed researching on the ‘net how else I can have my phone fixed. As was advised by the person I chatted with while in Aikontech, I even joined existing groups of Zenfone 2 users (‘Asus Zenfone 2 PhilippinesCommunity’, and ‘Asus Zenfone 2Philippines (SUPPORT)’), where possibly, I can find a solution for my phone.

And just to be sure, I also sent an email through the Asus website about my complaint.

Days went by as I continued researching online, and asking advise from the people within the Facebook Zenfone 2 communities I’ve joined for solutions (a couple of people reached out to me through that group, offering to help, but it was only after I posted my first open letter to Asus about my concerns), all of which ended up not being as fruitful as I hoped it would be. I also still haven’t gotten any replies from my email directly to Asus (eventually it took them EIGHT LONG DAYS before replying, giving lame excuse of blaming it to a system glitch in their mailing system).

So, I decided to bring my phone to one of Asus’s service centers again, this time to MSi-ECS. I got word that this service center was supposed to be more reliable in fixing mobile phones. And boy, how wrong it turned out to be!

They got me to surrender the phone after giving me the impression that it was the only way to have my phone repaired. And so I did. They advised me that I should get a “feedback” after 2-3 days. And what sort of feedback did I get afterwards? Just some sort of table, with short words on it (see illustration 2). That’s it. No further explanation. Yes, I know the information on that table was pretty self-explanatory. But, not even bothering to ELABORATE? Was it really so hard to compose a PROPER EMAIL REPLY?

Illustration 2: MSi reply email

Of course I immediately replied, asking for a further, MORE DETAILED explanation. And then I was made to wait another THREE DAYS before getting their next reply, only to be told that I had to wait ANOTHER 10 DAYS OR SO FOR THE PHONE TO BE REPAIRED?!

 In light of all these, whether or not this problem I'm encountering with trying to have my phone repaired A.S.A.P. gets resolved? I am certain of one thing: NEVER AGAIN WILL I BUY ANYTHING FROM ASUS.

As the saying goes, one can never please everybody. I won’t be surprised to get negative reaction from some people. Honestly? I couldn’t care less about their opinion. It’s not them who experienced these things after all. Oh and how I hope that these things don't happen to you!

What I DO care about is letting other people know about it, therefore possibly giving them insight before, say, purchasing anything from Asus.

Oh and by the way, once, I read a pinned post from an administrator of one of the Zenfone 2 Facebook groups that I’ve joined, saying something like “it’s better to direct your problems/complaints directly to the Asus website, rather than posting it everywhere on social media ineffectively.”

So not only did I do that, but also increased it up a notch by posting this on my Facebook wall, and to both my Blogspot and WordPress blogs  as well.