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Barnes & Noble’s e-book customer service found lacking
August 6, 2010 | 7:15 am
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By Chris Meadows
Sarah over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books forwards a complaint about Barnes & Noble’s customer service regarding e-books. A customer named Melinda writes in with a story of a book by Anne Stewart called Ruthless that has the correct sample chapters, but when she purchased the book itself it turned out to be Rich, Rugged…Ruthless by Jennifer Mikels.
I received the wrong book on Aug 1 (pub date of Stuart’s “Ruthless”) via my Nook, and dutifully wrote to Customer Service, and of course haven’t heard anything back from them yet. Certainly the problem hasn’t been fixed yet for me, and it looks to me like the problem is still afflicting new buyers at the B&N page as of today Aug 3. Perhaps a “public service announcement” to the Romance Reading Public ought to go out about this? Maybe Stuart’s publisher MIRA would like to know about B&N’s ham-handedness?
The next day, Melinda received a form email from Barnes & Noble asking that she call them to get a refund, or else keep checking back to see when the book gets fixed.
Sarah writes:
You want to bring it and be a presence in the digital market? Bring the customer service with your noise and funk. Sending a response three days later and then asking the customer to call you back to fix a mistake you are aware of is NOT going to get it done. Please check back? Please call us?
And, she points out, B&N is still selling the wrong file.
Of course, this is hardly B&N’s first e-book customer service faux pas. A while back, they quietly switched from selling e-books in eReader format (that could be loaded into the Fictionwise eReader app even on an old Palm Pilot) to EPUB format…without telling anyone. This led to unpleasant surprises for Palm owners who bought Barnes & Noble e-books.
In a comment in the massive discussion thread generated by the article, Emma Cunningham from Harlequin (Ruthless’s publisher, of which MIRA is an imprint) writes:
On behalf of Harlequin (Anne Stuart’s publisher), we have been made aware of a problem with the file. We are working with all vendors to get an updated copy of the file available and ready for download. We apologize for the error but hope it will be fixed shortly.
Other comments include numerous paeans to Amazon’s customer service, which is described as top-notch.
Small wonder Barnes & Noble is having to put itself up for sale.
(In other news, I’m amused to find that my work Internet filter blocks SBTB, apparently thinking it’s a porn site or something.)
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I have not had the same experience on bn.com but no doubt they need to upgrade their customer service. In my experience, Amazon has great customer service and they respond immediately. In this battle, customer service is one of the major points that smart companies will focus on.
Thank you for the report Chris – I have shared this story with all of my personal online email community.
B&N’s email Customer Service is a low-priority (48-hour turnaround) service suitable for only the most minor of inquiries.
Any problem of importance should be handled by a phone call to B&N’s telephone support people, who are overall amazingly good (there’s always one or two flat tires in a group). 1-800-THE-BOOK (1-800-843-2665), option 2 for Digital Support. Outside the US, 1-201-438-1834.
I can’t think of any kind of question that would have me e-mail B&N’s Customer Service. Call them.
I agree with Doug, email is NOT their primary means of dealing with issues for B&N (although I have done it with no problems on a very few minor issues). Calls have always had immediate results. Guess they just like the old-fashioned, personal touch! What’s wrong with that in this impersonal world?
You’ve heard the bad stuff. Now here some good stuff. On 12-29-10, my Nook leapt to its death after it dropped from my hand onto a stone floor. Didn’t have my receipt and was unsure if I had purchased the extended warranty. Called 1-800-THE BOOK, got connected (after about 20 minutes) to a gracious young lady named “Kathleen” in Manila who confirmed that I had indeed purchased the extended warranty. Took her about 10 more minutes to process the claim and a new Nook is on its way to me via UPS. She was so efficient and helpful; I asked to be transferred to her supervisor and complimented Kathleen. I couldn’t have asked for better service. Thanks, B&N.
And now for the bad…. again. Had my Nook Classic for 6 months and it was great. Then Saturday night it dumped all 80 of my books and retruned to factory settings. The next morning, I turned it on and it did it again. This wasn’t an isolated incident. At this point I was afraid to turn it off anymore. So I called, and they said “if it happens for a second time, then call us and we’ll get you a replacement.” I explained (again) that I it had happened indeed for a second time. Finally, the CSR gave me a “guaranteed fix” -her words, not mine. I asked her to stay on the line while I did the fix. After I did the fix, it didn’t automatically turn on, so I switched it on and lo and behold, it started going back to factory settings again. Finally, she said she’d send a replacement, gave me a tracking number in exchange for my credit card number. This was a lovely 1.5 hour call. Three days later, I check with UPS and although a label was created, no shipment was given to UPS. I call, again and have to explain that yes, I realise it’s gonna take 3-5 days, but it hasn’t even gotten to UPS yet! 40 minutes later, they still don’t know what’s going on and have to call down to the warehouse. They told me someone would call me or email me back today- and that’s only because I insisted that somebody do so instead of having to explain the situation over again to someone else. Four hours later and still no phone call and i’m seriously beginning to wonder if I will hear back today even though I explained that I was heading out of town soon. All I want now is to get a working Nook so I can sell it on eBay and use the funds to buy a Kindle. There’s just no way I’m giving B&N my business again.
My experience with B & N. I purchased a downloadable Sparknotes on Jan 4. I was to receive my download in 5 minutes – stated on the page you buy the download. The next day I emailed B&N to tell them that I had not got my download. I got a generic response that they are too overwhelmed to respond to emails. The next day the same w/ same response. Five days later I called to cancel my order and waited 55 minutes on hold. I was told that they couldn’t cancel my order, but if I didn’t download it, I wouldn’t be charged. Finally on Jan 19, I got a the email with the download, I replied that i had already read the sparknotes online and I was not going to download it, please cancel the pending Paypal charge. I got the same generic response that they are to busy to respond to emails. I’m now disputing the charge with PayPal. Will not deal with B & N again. Stick with Amazon and Borders.
My biggest problem with B&N has been with shoddy ebook products sold… which was obviously a publisher issue, not a B&N issue. However, I dressed them down for selling such badly-formatted ebooks on 2 occasions, 1 including a book that was missing its ending pages… and I requested, and got, a full refund for each book from B&N.
(I never heard whether the publisher was going to fix the books in question, but I made sure the author was aware of the bad condition of his books, so he can exert pressure on them to fix things.)
Of course, I did have to abandon my B&N Reader for Windows smartphones, when the app self-upgraded and would no longer work. B&N refused to support the app, because it was not “officially” released (which brought forth the question of why an unofficial app is updating itself).
I am so tired of dealing with customer service. They really can’t take care of anything yet they’re called customer service. They are always transfering me to another Dept. and then they can’t help me either. I have been charged for a magazine for the last 5 months and canceled it in Nov. 2012. Now it is April and I was charged again. I have called 4 times and been to the store, I even sent a fax with my bank statement showing the charges which they claim the did not get. Well it wa the Number they gave me. I am on the phone with them now waiting to be transfered to someone else.