Hello Roku And Other Users Of Their Products:
This is the best way (in my humble opinion) which a corporation big and small should assist their members, users, whatever you call it/them. I am going to post a short excerpt of a conversation I had yesterday with Trac Fone. Another high tech company that sells their products (phones and minutes) to the masses. I chose the Chat option online to contact them. So let us all tune in and see Trac Fone and I in action:
Iona: Thank you for responding so quickly! (I was #52 on the queue) My alternate phone # is (XXX) XXX-XXXX (my own personal smart phone number was voluntary given out to Trac Fone in case of becoming disconnected mid conversation while dealing with and fixing the just purchased flip phone from Trac Fone)
Trac Fone: You're welcome and thank you for this information.
Trac Fone: Please allow me a moment to look into this.
Trac Fone: Thank you for waiting.
Trac Fone: I can see that your new phone is active in our system.
Since the phone is still not working, we can troubleshoot the issue to resolve the problem for you.
Iona: Great! Let's do it!
******Later On******
Iona: Oh, I just got a message from Trac Phone! It says Welcome To The Trac Phone Family......etc. Is this what I was waiting for?
Trac Fone: No. The phone needs to reconnect to the network since you just powered it off.
Trac Fone: But, that is a good sign since you receive the welcome message.
Iona: Good. What's next?
I won't bore all of you with what happened afterwards. I very quickly finished up on my activation (the flip phone had some difficulty for some unknown reason to me connecting up to the network and needed talk/or type for Chat through help from Trac Fone directly in real time (not that very-sorry-as-an-excuse emails, or worse using the even slower responses Roku forums offered here, hint-hint Roku) in order to complete the activation fully 100%). I was then able to make and received the calls to and from that new phone. My sick very elderly mother in a nursing home needed that phone very badly right afterward to reconnect back out into the world again during her rehabilitation. The End.
This is the way a new user should be handled and fixed the problem. By the user choosing the best method for them, contact and a walk through, and finally happiness using their products as long as the user wants to. If I did not get the help I needed, the phone would have needlessly be returned to the retailer that I bought it from and I would have lost 20 dollars in minutes.
So Roku, heed this from one of your supporters. Stop being so cheap in dealing with your customers both new and old. Your products are very similar in usage and interaction with the buyers of your products. You never know if your own devices are set up in some rehab center/nursing home keeping someone's mother (like mine) involved with the world in a limited way for now.
