Comments on: Customer Support is a Major Focus for Ooma

By: Jonathan Carcopo

Jonathan Carcopo — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:39:42 +0000

After having ooma for a year I decided to upgrade to the telo and ooma premier. After realizing that I was duped into buying the telo handset so OOMA can make lots of Christmas money and receiving 3 Telo Handsets that flat out suck, I decided to ask for a refund.

I have recently spent $600 on Telo, telo handsets, ooma premier for 2 years.

The Telo handset is an abysmal cordless phone. Call quality is unacceptable, battery life is unacceptable, range is unacceptable, missing the firmware update 2 times is unacceptable, not having a RMA process is unacceptable…..meeting your XMAS deadline cost you a customer.

Consider this my last attempt to get a refund for your defective beta product that doesn’t work as a phone much less support advanced google voice features as promised. Vaporware comes to mind.

Next I will be contacting the BBB and the NC State Attorney General’s office regarding OOMA’s business practices; taking customer’s money and refusing to refund it when after waiting a month for updates that have never come.

Your company has NO PROCEDURE FOR RMA is what I was told by your Philippines service reps. I called 3 times today and each time the call was conveniently dropped and never returned. I have 3 open tickets and no follow up or return in 10 days. No supervisors are available to take the calls.

Your company made the Christmas buying season only to alienate the customers who took a risky leap of faith on your nearly defunct venture a year ago.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Carcopo

By: Dave Yuhas

Dave Yuhas — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:26:39 +0000

Ooma will not accept some activation codes. The fix, emailing Dennis P, is in the support forum. But the forum software won’t let me register. So Ooma returns to Costco tomorrow.

By: Milard Smallwood

Milard Smallwood — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:05:24 +0000

I purchased my Ooma Telo about a week ago on 12/3/2009. There are two problems I’m having that make Ooma hard to recommand to my friends & family. I bought this device for our cottage, in an area where cell phones don’t work very well and the land line option is expensive for a phone that is used for a couple of weeks per year. The problem started when I went to pick a telephone number, the local exchange is 585-682, no numbers available, as a matter of fact, none of the 11 exchanges I tried – had a number. The entire county. So I called customer support, they said I could get on a list to await a local exchange, BUT THAT THERE WAS NO GUARANTEE of when one would became available. So I had to pick another number. One that will cause my neighbors to call long-distance to reach my cottage 200 feet away. Second problem was I wrote customer service at Ooma a week ago and stil haven’t received a reply to my problem. I realize most people probably transfer their existing number to Ooma, but I don’t have one to transfer. What does Ooma advise???

By: Brandon

Brandon — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:17:27 +0000

We have had Ooma for about a year now, and LOVE IT! We have save almost $50/month over our old phone service and love all of the features and the free long distance. The quality is outstanding and I tell all of my friends and family about it. I don’t know why anyone would use anything else. Skype is not good, Magic Jack doesn’t sound good, Ooma is absolutely the best in my honest opinion. I have never had to use customer service, so I can’t comment on that.

Keep up the good work. I will be a customer for life.

By: Rajesh

Rajesh — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:18:23 +0000

@John

I’ll be using Google Voice and free sipgate phone number. Coupled with a cheap VOIP adapter(like Linksys PAP2) I’ve almost same or more features for free.

By: John

John — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:09:43 +0000

@Rajesh,

Same here without callerID name and full call forwarding features ooma wouldn’t get a dime from me anyways.

By: Rajesh

Rajesh — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:37:02 +0000

Was considering buying it till I found that advertised free for life is not really free. Typical attitude of companies becoming greedy once they have good customer base. What is the assurance that new fees won’t be applied after few years under one or other excuse. The level of trust is not same as it used to be in the beginning.

By: michael

michael — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:55:51 +0000

I odered 3 Ooma tel handsets almost 2 weeks ago. I have never had any communication from Ooma confirmimg the order, delivery date, etc. I brought this to the attention of a customer support person who indicated I would receive confirmation 5 days ago. I’m still waiting. I did note my credit card was charged immediately. I intend to call and cancel my order tomorrow as my trust in Ooma is rapidly disappearing.

By: Venson Thomas

Venson Thomas — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:34:25 +0000

I have also been reading through the consumer opinions here and find myself suddenly hesitant in purchasing the Ooma Telo. At first I thought it might, if equipped with a couple of handsets, provide a bit more convenience than the Skype service that I’m using.

Skype claim is that for $12.95 a month I can call anywhere in the world I want to without extra fees. That’s only about $35.00 above what I’d have to pay Ooma after the purchase of the $220 to $250 Telo device. Skpe’s not as fancy a deal as Ooma but from what I’ve seen here a lot less of a pain in the neck. It appears I can also get Skype compatible VOIP phones and come out cheaper.

You need to think over your pricing carefully. A Telo for only a couple hundred bucks has a romantic ring to it only at first. When the list of other options and add-on are factored in you can end up spending as high as $400 to get what is alleged to be an inexpensive VOIP calling method set up. I am not one of those customers willing to nickled and dimed and certainly not one to buy on pie-in-the-sky claims and wait for savings to come in. I want to see significant savings come about from day one.

Venson Thomas

By: Jason Bunting

Jason Bunting — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:23:17 +0000

Hmm, I am strongly considering purchasing an Ooma system, but after spending the last 45 minutes reading the most recent 4 blog posts and the associated comments, I may end up purchasing it without the full level of satisfaction I had originally hoped for.

Some of the issues are, for me, hard to accept. Namely, the overseas support, the new fees on what was supposed to be “free” service, and the caller ID function.

Other issues, such as the not-so-strange 5000 minute “limit”, and the free, then not free, then free again voice mail (I have a phone with voice mail, I don’t think it is that strange that this feature is not free) are not as big a deal.

One other issue that bothers me is the lack of response from the company here in the blog comments. If you are going to have a blog and allow comments, at least plan on responding to posted comments within a reasonable amount of time, such as 24 hours. Even if your response amounts to “we are looking into this” or “we are considering this option,” it is better than no response at all. People like me come here and are left to think “Hmm, they don’t seem to care too much about what people are saying.”

If you are responding to posts by sending the poster an email, that’s fine if the information is private, but at least post a message here that says something to the effect of “John Doe, I just sent you an email detailing our response to your issue” so that other people know you are responsive.

Just my 2 cents, I hope I get the good feeling back about Ooma soon, I really want to get Qwest out of my life as much as possible (a 2 year DSL contract will prevent me from fully eliminating them at this time) but I do not want to leave one bad company for another. Obviously you cannot please everyone, but there are some basics here that I think are obvious.

Maybe you should offer the “free” service but have, as optional, a la carte features, those items that people seem to be requesting most – voice mail, caller id, call waiting – for a reasonable additional cost.

Thanks,
Jason Bunting