Microsoft recently announced that they would be spending over a billion dollars to deal with the high failure rate of the Xbox 360. You would think that the bad press Microsoft has been getting over this issue and the high cost of dealing with it would mean that customers who got the “red lights of death” would be treated to high levels of service and care. Not so, as David Heinemeier Hansson has recently discovered:

But much worse, expected service time is 4-6 weeks! Between the attempts at calling support and shipping boxes back and forth with snail service, I’m looking at a two-month turn-around from problem to resolution. Yikes.

Yikes indeed. Microsoft could turn this situation into a net positive if it dipped into its massive war chest and really took care of its customers. For what its worth, Microsoft should have set up a site where Xbox 360 owners who are having this specific problem could file a report. Once the customer has logged the report a box would be sent to them overnight. Once the shipping service confirms receipt of the broken unit a new (or refurbished) unit should be shipped to the customer. This way there would be maybe 3-4 days turnaround time once the problem has been identified.

Microsoft bashing is easy, but the company doesn’t do themselves any favors. They seem to get it consistently wrong when it comes to dealing with their customers. Maybe if Microsoft were feeling more heat from the PlayStation 3 they would be more inclined to get it right. In the meantime, you just have to shake your head in wonder.

Tags: customers, microsoft, service, xbox