Community discussions

[Shadowfarble]

People are trashing Roku because Roku trashed their customer support service.  A forum is NOT an acceptable substitute for actual customer support, and having a broken email option is inexcusable.  I sometime have to work from home due to the situation, and when I do it is a company expectation that I have my phone forwarded to my cell phone so I can still take calls as needed.  My only guess is that Roku lept upon the excuse of the situation to fire all their call center employees and dissolve it entirely.

People are upset because they paid money for a product that they are not being offered adequate support on.  Why is there no online chat support?  That is something that can easily be done from home, and yet it is not an option?

[atc98092]

Roku has never had telephone customer support, so there was no call center to close. It is disappointing that they don't have a simple email address for tech support. They are forcing their forum moderators to be the go-between, and it's less than effective. And I am in no way disparaging RokuDanny, as he does his best within the limits the company places on him. 

One of the major issues is people are constantly blaming Roku for issues with the channels/apps. With the exception of Roku Media Player and The Roku Channel, Roku themselves do not produce or support the channels we use on the devices. Roku cannot fix what they did not create and have no ability to even look at the coding.

[Shadowfarble]

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@atc98092 wrote:

Roku has never had telephone customer support, so there was no call center to close.

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Google "roku support phone number" and you will see otherwise.  Call that number, and you will get an automated message telling you phone support has been closed due to the situation and to see support on the forums or by email (which, again, is broken).  Regardless of whether they had a dedicated call center or not, they DID offer over-the-phone support, then canceled it.

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@atc98092 wrote:

One of the major issues is people are constantly blaming Roku for issues with the channels/apps. With the exception of Roku Media Player and The Roku Channel, Roku themselves do not produce or support the channels we use on the devices. Roku cannot fix what they did not create and have no ability to even look at the coding.

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Unless Disney+, Netflix, and Pandora all broke simultaneously, it's a little disingenuous to suggest that something isn't up with Roku and how it interacts with those services, no?

Can you explain to us why this Forum is inadequate?

Are you seriously asking why posting a question and waiting hours or more for a response is worse than a 15 minute phone conversation?  Seriously?

You, like most people with problems are simply impatient.

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Roku is not doing me a favor by offering technical support in a timely fashion.  It is part and parcel of what I paid for, and if they cannot manage basic customer serve like any other respectable company, I will not be purchasing any of their products and I'll make sure I'll pass that along to my friends and family whenever they're looking at what company to purchase from as well.  Loyalty cuts both ways, screw your customers and you'll suddenly find you don't have any.

[boogernose]

@Shadowfarble 

Didnt you mention you had a lower end Model Roku?

Those are some of the most demanding Channel/Apps

What difference's do you suppose exist between say an Ultra and lower end Models?

[Iona-D]

Spell it out more clearly: better performance, even sometimes the only way you can stream a very demanding app.  

I use only the better Roku models -the Ultra & Streaming Stick Plus-after dealing with too many glitches with a lower performing now obsolete plain Stick.  The Ultra has an Ethernet port & the SS Plus has a boost built right in. 

The only thing either of these devices cannot do is add channels that are not available for downloading into your own device.  

[Gary-94080]

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@boogernose wrote:

Can you explain to us why this Forum is inadequate?

go through the community posts and look at all the posts that have no replies.

if this is supposed to be a substitute for technical support, I would say that it is a failure.

[Iona-D]

Actually, if someone with technical training handles problems & concerns the way people deserve & expect, there would be no more half hearted miscommunications between all parties involved.  A paycheck does make a real difference for the seriousness of the countless mishaps which seem to occur over and over again.

Forums manned by volunteers,  vastly overworked few remaining emploees using just paltry email & private messages replies and not even Chat available spell big and avoidable disasters yet ahead for all.

[boogernose]

What is happening is people are buying cheaper low end Roku's and or Smart TV's

and are really incapable of doing their own troubleshooting. Or finding already Solved

threads and info and being proactive with their issues. Many struggle to post simple

support questions adequately. They will quickly blame Roku without really knowing

what the issue is. When I read someone ranting about how its all Roku's fault without

knowing what the problem is I immediately lose interest in trying to help them.

This frustration is counter-productive and I can appreciate why

maintaining support lines would be over-whelming. I've been getting burned out for

a while now. Every ones an expert and will Challenge everything. I'm pretty much out of here.

[cattblue]

Gotta say, Booger, I don't take kindly to your comments. It's not "trashing" Roku if you can't get any help after spending hours going in circles; and for some of these folks, it has been a repeated effort. Roku is just fine on selling us products and services, but then are not available when there are problems. Danny boy just kept blindly sending everyone to the website which is mostly useless. Obviously, he was busy with copy, paste, copy, paste...sending us all back where we'd already failed. After you spend a couple hours looking for assistance, and then wash, rinse, and repeat, you have a right to get upset. You lumped us all together and tried to make it sound like we were unreasonable with poor Roku. Danny finally responded to me, but by then I'd fixed my own problem. Since it was obvious that there isn't much customer service available, I didn't see a point in making a purchase from them. I cancelled my order yesterday and immediately got what I needed from Amazon. It was delivered today. It really doesn't matter if Roku has the answers if they won't provide them to us. We shouldn't have to be driven to the point of frustration. Roku is a business; other businesses are making it work. I went all through the messages and saw the same lack of response repeatedly. Enough is enough.

[boogernose]

So I looked at your posts. Not one addresses any problem at all just

attempts and gripes over not reaching support. Over and over And you

claim in this final post you were able to fix your problem on your own.

Oh and of course your going to leave Roku and cancel whatever.

II guess Im supposed to care. Actually it will be nice if I never hear of

you again. Who are these people?

Did you need help with anything???? Oh its was nothing really apparently.