FitBit is Legit When It Comes to Customer Service

When Wearable Technology Wears Down

The alarm clock on my FitBit Charge wakes me up each day at 5:15am. Three subtle vibrations shake me from my slumber and remind me it’s time to start a new day.  I’ve been really disciplined about my exercise so far this year so I usually head downstairs, grab a glass of water and my ear buds and go to the basement to complete my cardio efforts.

Like many people who are now sporting the wearable technology like FitBits, Jawbones or Apple Watches, I pretty much wear mine 24/7 except when in the shower or swimming. My competitive nature compels me to check it every so often to see how far I have to go before I “hit” my 10,000 steps for the day. That celebratory vibration when surpassing your steps is always a fun moment in my day…and has caused me to walk around my family room when watching the last half of a television show because I am short of the finish line. It’s a sinking feeling to hit the bed and realize you were only a few hundred steps from breaking the 10K barrier for the day.

The last few days I have noticed that my FitBit band is starting to bubble, crack and peel away from the monitor display. I really don’t want to start limiting my usage of it because it counts all my steps throughout the day, even when I am not officially exercising. I also haven’t heard many people talk about positive experiences with their “return policy” or help desk for repair issues.

This morning I decided to take a chance with their social channel. After all, I’ve had great experiences with brands like Marriott, Southwest Airlines and Uber in the past and it’s not like sending one more tweet would really mess up my day.

Hey @fitbit – my strap is starting to peel off near my display monitor. Is it possible to get new straps? Not even a year old yet.

— Sean Carpenter (@seancarp) January 22, 2016

In less than 3 hours, the team at FitBit responded back to me to contact their customer service team and they would do their best to help.

@seancarp Hi! Please reach our other support channels at https://t.co/n568EV68G3. We’ll see what we can do to help!

— Fitbit Support (@FitbitSupport) January 22, 2016

Most customers shouldn’t realistically expect full resolution to every problem they contact a company with but I don’t think it’s unrealistic to expect a response. I was fully expecting to hear back the next day or over the weekend so the fact that they responded within hours was great. I didn’t even mind that they directed me to another channel. I felt I was being helped and now had another chance to get more help.

Call, Email or Chat?

Many company sites that offer “Help” give customers the option of calling or emailing. These two options could lead to the dreaded “telephone tree” where you cannot get connected to a real live person or your email must be completed in a template of options that don’t even match your issue. More and more companies these days are offering a “chat” function for resolving customer issues and much like a text conversation, can happen in real-time and you feel like you’re getting somewhere…even if you’re not getting somewhere.

Crystal replied quickly as I initiated the chat. “How can I help you,” was her simple lead in and after telling her of my issue, she replied that she would be happy to help me. A few minutes of back & forth and Crystal was able to determine that my FitBit should not be having these times of “quality control” issues.

There was no blame being directed my way for not wearing the product properly. There was no “passing the buck” by Crystal saying it was the manufacturer that messed it up. She never told me it was too late to try to get a new one. It was a wonderful job of listening to the customer explain the issue and then, calmly saying to herself, “what can I do to make this right?”

A few minutes later, we were exchanging details for express delivery of my replacement FitBit Charge. The best part was there was no exchange of credit card information because FitBit wasn’t charging me anything. Talk about a pleasant customer service experience, huh?

Crystal asked me politely if there was anything else she could do for me and I told her no. I did ask if there was a way I could let her supervisor know how great of a job she did. I could almost sense she was blushing through the chatting script as she probably said to herself, “Aw shucks…but I do this every day. It’s really no big deal.” She told me I would be getting a survey once we disconnected from the chat but little did she (or her supervisor) know I felt her efforts were #BlogWorthy.

Wherever Crystal is today – maybe in the headquarters of FitBit in San Francisco or in a call center in some small Midwestern bunker or some far away South Pacific country – she should be proud of herself. Much like the products she helps to support, she really has her finger on the pulse of her customers.

Way to step it up a notch Crystal!

Keep building relationships, solving problems and having fun.

Photo Credit: Mike Mozart via Flickr