Motorola W375: Boon or Bane?. Review on Motorola W375

'If the company cant make available the spare parts for its 'newly launched' product, nor bother to respond to mails seeking a part replacement or a re-fund, it obviously has no regard for the customer.'

*With an opening line such as the above in a review on W375 from Motorola with a tale of woes as detailed below from February'07 till June'07 and continuing, I hadnt harboured any hope of a response from the company...However, the issue was resolved within less than 5 days of the review actually posted on mouthshut..if you want to know how, please read through the rest of my initial review below followed by the update on the turn of events...

'...Motorola is fooling around with customers like us who bought the product in good faith. The Motorola W 375handset is a flip one which like most Motorola models looks sleek and I happened to pick it up for Rs. 5, 999/- in mid- February'07 for my husband. I was told it was a new model launched less than 2 days ago and I thought it was worthwhile given the nature of expected usage. Little did we know what we were in for.

The sliding flap that covers the battery was slightly lose and actually fell off 3 weeks down the line. Since then till now(May28th), we have made rounds of the outlet the handset was purchased from; the Motorola service centres in Mumbai; spoken to Motorola customer support helplines; visited the Mobile Store outlets only to be told that the panel replacement is not available.

Under the circumstance, Motorola service centre suggested that the entire back panel be replaced at a cost around Rs. 2000/-actually Rs. 2, 800/- to be precise). My husband, by now apprehensive of the impending monsoon which could potentially damage the phone with the exposed battery and sim, expressed his willingness to bear the cost of this ridiculous solution.

But there is still a problem..the company doesnt even have the full back panel to replace!! The phone in its present condition is indefinitely irrepairable (as it has been for last 2 months) and cannot be re-sold as it is.

Incidentally, the Mobile Store at Santacruz already has yet another customer facing the exact same problem with the same model of handset.

If anyone from Motorola is listening, then would appreciate a spare part replacement to be made available immediately; else, please oblige by buying back your 'brand new model' of handset. And..what on earth were the people running Motorola thinking when they decided to launch this product?!..any guesses anyone??...'

*Review response from the company:

The review was posted on the site onJune 5th.

On June 8th, two people from Motorola responded.

One, who said she was the 'Experience Care Manager' and had posted a comment seeking all details and expressing inability to reach us due to lack of contact information & providing the id for us to write in: info.in@motorola.com - which ironically was the id I had already written to earlier in May and hadnt received any response.

The second was a gentleman who shared his mobile number and his own official id for us to get in touch. He turned out to be overseeing customer care for the Western region.

I wrote back to both with every detail and by next morning ie 9th June, the gentleman was on the phone with us. The same afternoon, a person from Motorola came over at home with a new handset to replace the earlier one.  I duly called the aforementioned gentleman for closing out the issue - which had been nearly haunting us for last couple of months- with such promptness.

It is indeed heartening & almost impressive to find such intiatives to quickly address & resolve customer problems. However, it still leaves a nagging thought gnawing away at the back of the mind...what if one didnt come on to a site like mouthshut to talk about the experience?? Afterall, **the 'Experience' was cared for not at the time when contacted directly by the customer with hope of being addressed; but fortunately or unfortunately, it came at the juncture when the same  customer gave up on the services of the company.

Note: The over all rating of the product itself is above average, but the 3 month post sales experience, - notwithstanding the final resolution, - has made me too skeptic to recommend it. I leave it for you to make your own choice after going through the above..