Do you remember, there was that thing called “customer service”. Even when your warranty ran out, you could still hope for the company to be able to help. Thanks to it the customer knew if he ever develops problems with his products, the company will be there to help. When I needed a homologation certificate for my Daihatsu, even though the company pulled out of Europe over a decade ago, they still had that one friendly guy in some room in Birmingham providing help and assistance. There is even a company in England tasked with providing parts to British cars that have been out of production for many years, I once helped my friend to locate a Bedford bumper corner there. But today, customer service is defined differently. It’s not about solving their problems, it’s about being there for them. Or at least pretending to be.
I am using Nextbase dashcam. Not my first choice, but being British company their products happened to be the only ones in stock in Scotland (where I lived then) short time after Brexit when I needed to buy a new one. The camera it self is pretty decent (apart from being absolutely unable to connect to one’s mobile as advertised) and it served me very well over the years. Until a sucker in a suction cup mount broke.
I went to Nextbase Finnish website – as Finland is where I live now – hoping to buy a new one. Turns out you cannot. Suction cup mount is only available as a part of a set, including a stick-on mount and a feet that provides power supply and GPS signal. The whole lot costs about 50 euros – for a camera that costs twice as much.
I went to a British site then, since it’s a British company. You can get just a suction cup mount there. It’s priced at less than 10 pounds and it’s not in stock. But even if it was, they don’t ship overseas. But while there, I noticed the prices are completely different there. Could it be, every country’s website has different range and prices? I am going to Italy this weekend, so I checked the Italian site. No standalone suction cup mounts there, but they have the same set than in Finland, but 20 euros cheaper. Even if I wanted to buy it, it would not arrive on time, as delivery times are quite long, it would not arrive on time. One could think they are sending those from the UK…
The annoying pop up told me to come back to the Finnish site. There, a little prompt popped up in the corner. It told me if I could not find what I was looking for, I can contact customer service and they might be able to help. I decided to give it a go.
Customer service chat turned out to be a bot. A very enthusiastic bot, that told me an idea of buying a suction cup mount for my dashcam is like one of the best ideas ever. It was eager to help and provided me with a link where I can order it. It was the link to that British site, where the item is out of stock and where they don’t ship overseas anyway. I pointed it out to the bot. It reacted with great enthusiasm, expressing it’s admiration of my observation skills. It admitted that in that case it is unable to help, but it offered to put me in touch with real humans that could arrange the shipping of the item I need. I was given an e-mail address.
I received a respone just minutes after sending my e-mail. A very enthusiastic bot expressed it happines from the fact I deciced to contact human customer service. It told me buying a suction cup mount alone is a great idea, as not only it can lead to significant financial savings, but it also helps to reduce waste and my carbon footprint. It apologized for its friend and gave me a link, this one the correct one. Or so it said. In fact it was the very same link to the British website. Luckily in the same e-mail it was written that in the unlikely event of me being unhappy with bot’s assistance I could press the button and an actual human being will look into my case. I pressed the button.
A man introducing himself as Louis responded after a few hours. He told me he checked the website and found I could not order the part I need from the Finnish site. He also checked the British site, but it seems to him they don’t ship overseas from Britain. He apoligized that he cannot help me anymore. He suggested that a permanent mount might be a solution to my problem (it is not, I need a suction cup mount as I am changing vehicles all the time) and provided me with a picture of how it looks (I know how it looks, I have one in my own vehicle), although he warned me I won’t be able to order it from Nextbase either. But he said I can use picture as a reference and go look on the online marketplace. I am grateful they tried to help, but I already been to “online marketplace” to look for a suction cup mount and my guess is, I am not the only one that needs one, as prices on British ebay are as much as 40 pounds a piece for a new one and at least 20 for a second hand one – so twice as much as it would cost to order one from Nextbase if they had one in stock.
To sum it up: Nextbase wasted lot of my time forcing me to chat with their useless bots, only to connect me with their employee, so they can waste their time too, as after looking into the problem he came up with the information I had in the very beginning: I can’t order just a suction cup from their online shop. I am not a business person, but if I want, I would immediately cancel my AI subscription. Part of the savings I would use to buy a container or two of those suction cup mounts, that are clearly sought after by their customers as they unavoidably break with time. I would then send them to customers in need – perhaps even for free, so they would be impressed with a good service they received and remember that when there will be time to buy another dashcam…
Meanwhile I have enough of Nextbase. I found a matching suction cup mount on Ali Express. It took me less than 3 minutes. I paid 6.97 euro and I expect delivery in about a week. Shipping is free. And don’t even start telling me about the carbon footprint of shipping the item half way across the globe, because at least there was no need to use a stupid AI chatbot to get it done.
P.S. In case you wonder what is Nextbase’s attitude towards privacy of their customers, such as respecting their wish not to receive offers via e-mail, I just got an e-mail from Nextbase, in which they offered me a 3 euros discount if I order the mount set from Germany to have it shipped to Italy.
But it could be worse. At least the camera still works. It does not need internet connection or an app to function like some other products, that after company decides to cease support for those turn out to overpriced paper weights.
