How does Asus survive with such terrible RMA service?


Yeah that article came out shortly after my first terrible experience with asus, all I could think was that it nailed it right on the head across the board...things have gotten far worse since then.

And I'll tell you what I do about it, I don't buy their products and I encourage every single person I "meet" IRL or online to also not buy their products, maybe it only cost them ~$10k in the last 5 yrs but if everyone did it...
 
Would just like to update on my RMA of the P9X79 Pro, Asus had my board for ~3 weeks after the first 3 weeks of waiting for an RMA approval (fixed that by writing a nasty-gram review on newegg, lo and behold 2 hours after it posted I had an RMA number).

They send the board back to me in an inside out motherboard box that had exactly 6 packing peanuts in it for padding, I counted them. It was basically loose in there. I also got back a sheet of paper saying they returned the board but no evidence of what they might have done/tested was written on it. My onboard audio still doesn't work. The board miraculously survived the trip, and that is the last Asus product I will ever buy.
 
Send me your RMA number and details please, I'll forward to the CLM team to handle.
 
Hey everyone. So, couple of quick things.

1: If you have an outstanding RMA issue and you haven't already sent it off to Raja, you can just go ahead and send it to me. Save Raja the effort of doing the same thing.

2: There used to be two of us handling forums, now it's just me until they get someone new in, and I can only do so much. Sorry. So feel free to spread the word that RMA issues can be sent to the email address in my signature. PMs are also fine, but emails will probably be faster. It might take me a little while, as again I'm only one person, but I will systematically make my way through each request that comes my way.
 
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Have any of you guys though that they might have many MB to fix and it will take some time to get to yours?
Have that in mind and don't blaim them for taking so long to fix one board. Bet you wouldn't fix it any faster?
 
Have any of you guys though that they might have many MB to fix and it will take some time to get to yours?
Have that in mind and don't blaim them for taking so long to fix one board. Bet you wouldn't fix it any faster?

They are a large publically traded company that makes (profits) half a billion dollars a year, it shouldn't take 3+ mos to, maybe, get a working product back.
 
Try RMAing a laptop with ASUS. Just as bad as the mobo. Bought an Asus laptop for the wife to play WoW on. We picked up a decent model (like 1400 bucks 3-4 years ago) that had a 9800 mobile card in it. Had nothing but overheating issues, cooling fans died in it every 3 months. During the warranty period we went thru a bad LCD & video card two times. Each time this happened it took them a month to 1.5 months to repair it. Now the video card is going bad once again so its just a large paper weight. I haven't picked up another Asus product since and never will.

I've been buying Gigabyte mobos and an occasional MSI for years now. No problems with Gigabyte as of yet and one of the MSI's i had to RMA. Took two weeks but got it back and works fine now.

Not meaning to bump this thread or nothing but, You too? I had this same issue with the same laptop I bet, Let me guess Asus G50vt-x1? They screwed me over as well but I got the store to refund me 1000.00 for it,.
Worst company i ever dealt with. I paid extra for faster shipping due to my school work being on the pc.( I made a backup) and It still took a month to get it. AND ASUS LOST THE DAMN LAPTOP!!!!!
Then when I called and complained they did nothing. I had to send my POS ASUS laptop back 5 times for video card overheating issues. I had proper cooling pads and the works but it still happened. The last time, the card ran 315f in a matter of a couple mins....
 
Not to pile on.....but I gave up on Asus a long time ago. In my opinion they put out cutting edge hardware and then fail to update it to fix bugs or provide adequate support when something goes wrong. I owned several of their motherboards and other hardware and every one of them wasn't supported properly. I was looking for a tablet a month or so ago and saw an Asus Transformer Infinity at Best Buy. The tablet looked very nice and had the latest features but I kept thinking about the problems I had with Asus so I just ignored it and bought something else. The worker was bragging to me and several other potential customers about how great the tablet was. In front of all of them I mentioned the problems I had with Asus and that I would never buy anything made by them. Everyone of the customers shook their heads and walked away. I felt like I did them all a service by letting them know the kind of service that Asus gives to their customers. I will take my chances on any other brand but not Asus. Enough is enough.
 
Scott, incoming email.

For everyone else, I've been an Asus customer for 15 years. They have been utterly failing at my RMA for the past 45 days. Pretty much every possible mistake has been made. I'm not sure how they will survive with this terrible level of support.
 
They make millions of products so many of them will work as expected. Asus makes high-end products as well as decent products at cut-rate prices.

This is because they cut their rate on customer service. I've dealt with Asus CS once, and I've sworn off Asus ever since.
 
The Windows CD Key label wore off on the bottom of my Asus 1215n. I called Microsoft to have them help me and they directed me to Asus. 45 minutes on hold and the Asus rep said that I would have to use the recovery partition to reinstall Windows. I told him that wasn't available because the drive had been replaced. He told me I would need to buy a new license.

I called Microsoft back and in 15 minutes and $10 had a replacement CD key.

It takes such little effort to please customers, I don't understand how companies screw it up. I doubt I will buy Asus anymore because of this.
 
Asus used to be a good company, until they got too big. This is what happens when companies are successful, and grow too much too fast.

I'll tell ya what, i've had lots of Asus products over the years. In fact I just got a new Sabortooth Z77 motherboard. If it fails, (knock on wood...) then I won't even give them a chance to RMA. I will just chuck the fucking thing in the trash and cut my losses.

Hell if I'm waiting 3 months for a repair.

They must be losing costomers fast, on a daily basis. All I see are complaints now.

Its weird. Remember when everybody used to laugh at MSI, Gigabyte, etc. Now these companies have solid products, and Asus is shit now.

My how times change....
 
Just in case any reps happen to read this thread at all. I can say, I just recently purchased a new gaming laptop and although I liked some of the Asus designs, I eliminated them right off the bat due to the service nightmares discussed here and elsewhere.
 
They make millions of products so many of them will work as expected. Asus makes high-end products as well as decent products at cut-rate prices.

This is because they cut their rate on customer service. I've dealt with Asus CS once, and I've sworn off Asus ever since.

There are five other people, aside from myself, who might beg to differ with that assessment. Our entire job is focused on addressing these kinds of RMA issues. That's an investment in the neighborhood of a half million dollars annually on the part of Asus. Some may argue it's not enough, some might take a cynical view that it's an indicator of some kind of problem, but it's also an indicator of the company recognizing an issue and taking steps to address it.

Now granted we still inflict the antics of Raja on you all, and for that you have my sincere apologies. :D
 
$500,000 might sound like a lot but considering ASUS's volume is somewhere around 5 million units per quarter (give or take) that amounts to perhaps $0.025 per motherboard spent on RMA support costs. Obviously not every quarter is going to have 5 million units sold so that number will vary. But we're still talking LESS THAN A DIME per board that either covers the pay for five or six employees or the entire RMA department (I'd like to assume the former for your sake cl-scott).

It might be an indicator that ASUS is improving but my multiple defective ASUS motherboards tell me otherwise. Maybe ASUS can raise prices or reduce profits by all of $1 or $2 per unit so that they can provide more functional boards, quality BIOS, and good customer service. Because based on my past experiences ASUS is still sorely lacking in all three.
 
$500,000 might sound like a lot but considering ASUS's volume is somewhere around 5 million units per quarter (give or take) that amounts to perhaps $0.025 per motherboard spent on RMA support costs. Obviously not every quarter is going to have 5 million units sold so that number will vary. But we're still talking LESS THAN A DIME per board that either covers the pay for five or six employees or the entire RMA department (I'd like to assume the former for your sake cl-scott).

It might be an indicator that ASUS is improving but my multiple defective ASUS motherboards tell me otherwise. Maybe ASUS can raise prices or reduce profits by all of $1 or $2 per unit so that they can provide more functional boards, quality BIOS, and good customer service. Because based on my past experiences ASUS is still sorely lacking in all three.

It's a fair argument, but you're also cherry picking your facts.

Those 5 million units don't just magically appear out of thin air. I'm sure it would thrill the accountants if they did. Someone has to design them, so there are R&D costs. Then there are production costs. Sadly Intel (or AMD) doesn't just say, "Oh, you need some chipset chips? No problem, here's a million of them on the house!" The manufacturers of the bare PCBs, and every other component that goes into making a board has to be paid for. Then there are costs associated with the distribution and marketing of the boards, so that if you walk into a Fry's or Micro Center there are units in stock, or NewEgg/Amazon has something to ship if you order from them. So it's not like if you buy a board for $200, that's $200 of pure profit going into the Asus coffers. I have absolutely no idea what the profit margin is, that's all completely divorced from my job except from the most generic sense that every Asus employee has a stake in it remaining profitable. The point is that if a board costs $200, a good deal of that $200 is already spoken for. So investing in having 6 full-time employees purely to try and deal with the kinks that are always going to happen in a large scale operation is rather considerable.

You'd also be wise to watch what you say. One of our group is a little firestarter. She got a nasty letter from someone, and an overhead light sputters, flickers, smokes, and dies. Sure, she claims she had nothing to do with it, but don't women always say that? I'm sure there are plenty of you out there who know the power of a dirty look from a woman. So I try and help out the legal department, not having to deal with immolation related deaths by warning people off. Plus there's always the chance KFC will decide to sue over some kind of trademark or patent involving cooking something to be extra crispy. :eek:

Yes, the above was a joke.

Finally, I'll let ss284 post some kind of conclusion to his story once the dust has settled if he chooses, but I'm on it. Fairly simple case from my position, just have to a small bit of coordinating with one or two other people here, and should have it more or less sorted soon.
 
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yea my big experience with them was at work.
Shipping overnight repairs on a NEW board.
we received it 2 days later with a long list of test and a statement that all test were ok and that it was working correctly.
TOO BAD THE SOBS FORGOT TO OPEN THE BOX!!!!
and it still would not turn on.
We paid overnight shipping both ways.
AFTER 3 phone calls and a LOT of screaming we got someone who could speak engrish and we got it fixed the second time and the shipping was at their expense so it went snail mail. (OF COURSE)

overall a 0 out of 10 for their so called RMA department
 
yea my big experience with them was at work.
Shipping overnight repairs on a NEW board.
we received it 2 days later with a long list of test and a statement that all test were ok and that it was working correctly.
TOO BAD THE SOBS FORGOT TO OPEN THE BOX!!!!
and it still would not turn on.
We paid overnight shipping both ways.
AFTER 3 phone calls and a LOT of screaming we got someone who could speak engrish and we got it fixed the second time and the shipping was at their expense so it went snail mail. (OF COURSE)

overall a 0 out of 10 for their so called RMA department

If it was a brand new board why did you even bother with RMA through ASUS? Would have been much easier to get it replaced through the vendor.
 
It's a fair argument, but you're also cherry picking your facts.

Those 5 million units don't just magically appear out of thin air. I'm sure it would thrill the accountants if they did. Someone has to design them, so there are R&D costs. Then there are production costs. Sadly Intel (or AMD) doesn't just say, "Oh, you need some chipset chips? No problem, here's a million of them on the house!" The manufacturers of the bare PCBs, and every other component that goes into making a board has to be paid for. Then there are costs associated with the distribution and marketing of the boards, so that if you walk into a Fry's or Micro Center there are units in stock, or NewEgg/Amazon has something to ship if you order from them. So it's not like if you buy a board for $200, that's $200 of pure profit going into the Asus coffers. I have absolutely no idea what the profit margin is, that's all completely divorced from my job except from the most generic sense that every Asus employee has a stake in it remaining profitable. The point is that if a board costs $200, a good deal of that $200 is already spoken for. So investing in having 6 full-time employees purely to try and deal with the kinks that are always going to happen in a large scale operation is rather considerable.

Oh I'm well aware that a majority of the board's price goes into manufacturing the boards and getting all the associated parts. Not to mention things have to stay profitable for ASUS to even exist. I'm just questioning why ASUS can't divert a bit more into customer service (it seems like you need the help) OR why a few more bucks can't go into higher quality components and manufacturing (if only to reduce the number of boards that get RMA'd, if possible). For the number of units sold, and with typical failure rates (don't know specific ASUS rates), I can definitely see where 6 people can get easily overwhelmed. I don't think adding $0.50(ish) on a $200(ish) sale price, to invest more in customer service, would result in lower demand yet you'd get $2.5M(ish) per quarter to go towards improving customer service, keeping an RMA stock of replacement boards available, and improving turn around times, and repair quality.

Disclaimer: I'm an engineer, not an economist.
 
Would it perhaps be a good idea to purchase one of those extended warranties through the retailer when you buy an asus board then? For example, for 24.99 you can buy a 2 year warranty on an asus MB at newegg. If anything goes wrong they just replace it for you. I don't usually purchase warranties because they're a ripoff, but in the case of asus, this way you get the quality product and the quality service.
 
NewEgg has its own can of worms as far as customer support goes. I wouldn't trust them on warranty service any more than ASUS, though I have zero evidence (aside from sales and RMA horror stories) to back my opinion up.
 
Would it perhaps be a good idea to purchase one of those extended warranties through the retailer when you buy an asus board then? For example, for 24.99 you can buy a 2 year warranty on an asus MB at newegg. If anything goes wrong they just replace it for you. I don't usually purchase warranties because they're a ripoff, but in the case of asus, this way you get the quality product and the quality service.

So you are advocating that you spend extra to maybe be able to get warranty service that was already promised to you by the manufacturer?

Sorry, but no. Not gonna happen.

Might as well buy a different brand that has good warranty service in the first place.
 
So you are advocating that you spend extra to maybe be able to get warranty service that was already promised to you by the manufacturer?

Sorry, but no. Not gonna happen.

Might as well buy a different brand that has good warranty service in the first place.

I agree that it's crap the way asus is treating their customers as of late. I would rather they simply ditch the warranty on their products than not honor what they offer. Regardless, they still build a quality product (maybe I'm just lucky but in 10 years and dozens of asus motherboards I've never had one go bad on me). I was just suggesting this for some peace of mind to those dead set on asus.
 
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