I owned and ran a medical supply business for 10 years, selling mainly online, with a miniscule turnover compared to multi-million pound multinational pharmaceutical company Abbott, that you all seem so keen to defend. God knows they need all the help that they can get, these multimillion pound multinational pharmaceutical companies!
If a customer had an issue with a product that we sold them, a foetal doppler, a TENS machine for labour pains etc, we'd swap it out for them - if it was user error that caused the fault, we might charge postage for the reaplacement, but we'd always swap it out for them, for two reasons.
1) It's the right thing to do. Some of us in business retain our sense of right and wrong.
2) It makes sound business sense to keep the customer happy. They tell their friends about the great service they got, their friends come to you for their orders. You don't get slagged off on forums.
In the case of Abbott, they have failed on both counts.
They have failed to supply the tubigrip / tape / blu-tac etc required to keep the sensors in place and blame me for not knowing that this was needed. My sensor came off, as I have said, whilst walking about in my house. I know that we all like the 'just and fair world fallacy' that dictates that 'for this bad thing to happen to me, I must somehow be to blame' - however I am not at fault for walking through a door way. I am not clumsy. It was not a lack of care. The sensor caught on the door, not me.
I know that lots of you don't need tape, for whatever reason. Clearly, I do. I'm bigger than average, taller and broader shouldered.... perhaps my doors are all less wide than standard - whatever the reason, I needed the tape to be able to use this product, it wasn't provided and I am now £50 down, unable to sing the praises of the product and unable to get the data I wanted.
Have a look at the sensor on your arm now and see if you can see which part of it costs enough to Abbott for them to charge £50 plus? Is it the 12p worth of plastic or the 22p worth of electronics?
They are charging a criminal mark up on these products as they have no like for like competitor.
They could therefore, easily NOT fail on both counts and it would not even cost them any money. They would in fact make a small fortune from me alone as I would continue to (be forced) to pay their prices every 14 days.
I'm pleased that you all love Abbott and their product so much. I loved it too for the first few hours, while it worked, whilst it was attached.
Since then, my experience has been all negative.
5 days to respond to a customer service email is not acceptable in 24/7 365 2016 - It displays either a customer service department who are overrun with complaints or a simple lack of care. Inexcusable.
To not replace and place the blame with me, losing a customer and all that profit suggests they have no business sense, or that an awfully large number of people are having the same issue and so they cannot afford to replace suggests that they have too much business sense and not enough compassion. Either way, they are not a company that I shall patronise or endorse.
Would you buy a new car if the wheel might come off if you accidentally nudged the kerb? which would be classed as your fault unless you had added a few extra bolts to hold the wheel in place?
Would you think very highly of say, Ford's customer service department if they ignored you for 5 days and then said 'the new wheel's cost is down to you, it's your fault, unless it just fell off, in which case, yes, we'll replace it"!!!!!!!!!!!
or would you expect a new car, designed to be driven on the roads, with kerbs, to be able to withstand such a commonplace occurrence?