We were shopping in KLCC when Shorty realized that she forgot to bring her phone. Since I carry two phones, I decided to lend her my primary phone which happens to be the Huawei Mate S that was sponsored by Huawei.
When she returned it to me later that evening she told me it’s broken. Well not physically broken, but for some reason the screen just wouldn’t start up again. I could see the lights blinking so I knew it was still turned on and it still vibrated when I got messages but for some reason the screen was completely blank.
I wasn’t sure if it was a hardware problem or an Android problem though I suspect it was the latter because Shorty told me she had the same problem with her previous Android phone. For all of us smartphone users, we know that when problems like this happen the best solution is to just reset the phone. I tried it but it didn’t work.
So finally I decided I had to send it to the Huawei service center but this led me to a ethical predicament.
I am promoting the phone to my followers as an ambassador of sorts for Huawei. I’ve mentioned before that you guys are like friends to me. If you’ve been telling a friend to buy a phone and then it suddenly fails on you, you’re not going to hide it right? You’re going to have tell your friend the truth.
The problem though was that I’m not sure if the marketing team behind Huawei would take it well. I’ve been working with brands in Asia for the past 8 years and brand managers tend to shy away from these things. They’d say “No… don’t say anything bad about my brand/product!” even though it’s impossible to expect that one or two of their products might be a lemon.
Still.. it was an ethical decision and I decided that I had to do it no matter what,
I called Emma from Huawei who hails from China but lives in Malaysia now and manages the marketing initiatives here. I told her about the problems and she was really apologetic and surprised. She assured me that this doesn’t normally happen.
Then I broke the news to her…
I told her that I had to disclose to my followers that the phone that I’ve been promoting has failed on me. I was prepared that a heated argument would ensue. That she’d say no I can’t write that and I’d argue against that.
To my surprise though she agreed with me and said she understood that it was important to be transparent. She then asked me how she could meet up with me to change the phone for me to which I said no.
Why no?
Well part of the selling point of the Huawei Mate S is that it comes with this card that gives you:
- 2 years warranty
- If there is a problem in the first year they’ll just exchange it for you 1 for 1. No questions asked.
- Free door to door pick-up and delivery if you have problems with it.
- One year free replacement of your LCD screen if you cracked it.
- And priority service at the Huawei Authorized Service Center meaning I don’t have the line up.
I told Emma that I wanted to test their after sales service. I didn’t want any special treatment. I wanted to experience it properly like how any of my followers might experience it if they ever had to bring their phones in.
So test it I did.
Now I recently had another China phone (I shan’t mention which brand) that failed twice on me and that after sales experience was pretty bad for me. There was a long queue and I think I had to leave my phone there for a week or so. I wanted to do a comparison.
I decided to go to the Huawei service center instead of having them pick it up from me because my house is really close to it anyway. Shorty and Fighter came along with me.
There wasn’t a queue so I didn’t find the need to use my card to cut through the line. I waited some 5 minutes or so before I was served. Then once I dropped off my phone I was told two things:
- If there was a problem with the hardware they would replace it for me with a brand new one
- If it was a small problem they can probably just fix it there and then.
My preferred option was 2) of course. As much as I’d like a new phone I wouldn’t want to have to go through the trouble of reinstalling all my apps.
The best part though was that they said that I will have a phone back within 2 hours. 2 hours! Wow.
So I left it and had someone pick it up for me in 2 hours. The phone was working again and on top of that they added a screen protector for me. At no charge.
I wasn’t sure what the problem was in the end but I suspect it was small because they didn’t have to replace my whole phone.
In fact I realized then that when I tried to reset the phone initially I was pressing the wrong buttons to do that. To reset an Android phone, you normally need to hold down the power button and the volume up button. I was holding the volume down button instead which was what you pressed to snap a screenshot.
So when I got my phone back I saw many many screenshots of the home page. Silly me. I think I would’ve been able to fix the problem just by resetting it right.
Regardless of that though, I don’t regret this experience. It gave me a chance to test the after sales service of Huawei but more importantly it reminded me how Huawei as a brand is so wonderful to work with. They understand social media and they understand how to work with online influencers like myself.
Thank you Emma and Danny. You guys have been wonderful to work with and I’d love to work with you more.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space