Why you SHOULDN'T buy a MIVI Earphone? #MiviReview

As the saying goes, “Don’t go from a good brand to a mediocre one without expecting bad customer service,” (just kidding, this isn’t actually a saying, but it should be).

Last December, I made a purchasing mistake (Mivi earphone) and now I am writing this MIVI review article to make sure nobody has to go through such deplorable experience. 

The sales team of MIVI "sells a dream" and the customer support "service the nightmare".

Although, I consider myself an aware consumer, I often make mistake of buying stuff from some shady & mediocre brands which I regret purchasing big time.

When it comes to buying sound equipment, I prefer Boat Nirvana. One fine day, I was watching a YouTube video by MostlySane and I saw a Mivi product. And damn! It looked cool. I researched about it for a while and I decided to buy this precious one.

Hands down, it's still my favourite bluetooth speaker. 

I decided to extend my loyalty to the brand and bought Mivi rock & roll earphones on my father's birthday.

And the horror begins...

Going from having a customer service where your issues are addressed realtime to where you are no longer heard can be jarring. 

I felt the same when I switched from Boat Nirvana to Mivi. 😣

For the bluetooth speaker, I never had any problems. So, I didn't contact them even once.

For the uninitiated, the earphone came with a one year warranty which means if it stops working abruptly, it will be picked up by the company for repair/exchange and they'll return it to you.

I have purchased a lot of earphones with such warranty scheme and it hardly takes 7-10 days to get the new repaired earphones. 

I thought MIVI follows the same business ethics but it wasn't the case.

It was the lockdown time. We all were going through unprecedented times. My earphone stopped working and I mailed to the Mivi support team to file my exchange request.

The date was 22nd May 2020, I was expecting the lockdown to extend, hence I had a notion in my mind that it would take at least 15-20 days resolving the issue for the company.

They replied after 4 days on 26th May. This was odd but I thought they might be short on man power as offices aren't opening due to lockdown. So, I didn't dig up too much.

Also, it was mentioned in their mail that it will take around 19-21 days. 

Anyways, I just wanted my product to be repaired. So, I sent them my details right away.

4 days passed by, I received their next email on 1st June saying that We will arrange the pickup within 48 hours and will send you a shipping label.

As per their instructions in the next email, I packed the product in a hardbox and sticked the printout of shipping label on it.

I was short on resources too but I did everything anyways. My printer wasn't working but I somehow arranged the printout so that the process can go smoothly.

The email instructed me to reply to the email and inform after the package was picked up. So, I emailed them.

Because I didn't have any acknowledgement from the courier person or the company, I asked to keep me in loop regarding the further development. 

At this stage, any good company would provide you a token number so that you can keep track of the progress, but not MIVI.

Again 4 days later on 7th June, I received an email saying this:

There was no token number/redressal number attached to it. Probably, they hadn't received my earphones by then, so I decided to wait for their next move.

I waited for 15 fucking days. Would you believe that? 15 damn days to get a response from them until I realised what an unprofessional company I am dealing with.

I still decided to not be rude or demanding. I asked them about it very politely.

Their response was very plain and need to know basis.

Their explanation for the delay was a huge backlog created due to the lockdown situation. 

I understood that they were just trying to brush it under the rug. But still I decided to give them the benefit of doubt. 

I profusely remained silent for a whole month. I didn't ask anything.

On July, 22nd, after almost 1 month I emailed them enquiring the status and conveying my displeasure with their late response:

As on publishing day of this article, I haven't received any communication from them after even 3 days.

I tweeted about it tagging Mivi official, they responded to my tweets saying they're willing to resolve it. They asked me to DM with request number. 

But, hey... I never received any request number. I don't have anything on me to tell them this was my case. This was the communication I had with you. 

They haven't tweeted to me after that as well.

If you are selling online, the best way to drive new sales and keep your business growing is to make the shopping & after-sales experience of the customers as seamless as possible.

But Mivi support team failed to make a good impression.

They failed hard. 

I would not recommend anyone to buy from such companies where customer care treats you bad and MIVI customer service cares for you like a stepmother.

They don't give a damn. It's just a gesture of showing they care but they don't.

As Dave Kerpan wisely said, "A brand not responding on Twitter is like hanging up the phone on customers. With millions watching."

MIVI did the exact same to me. They aren't sensible enough to even tell me what is exactly going on. Providing some concrete information about a delay is better than giving none.

It never ceases to amaze me that companies like Mivi are spending lakhs and crores to attract new young customers. 

That's why they're doing brand collaboration with Carryminati, Prajakta Koli and Bhuvan Bam. These are the highest paid YouTubers with millions of subscribers.

But they are doing nothing to keep the ones they’ve got! It seems to me the budgets should be reversed!

Lesson Learnt:

I will be careful before making a purchase. MIVI has one good product- MIVI roam speaker. It doesn't mean every other product will be of same quality.

No other Mivi customer has written a review about their delayed customer service. I, being the first one, expect to give you a sneak peek into what you signup for when buying a MIVI product.

Thank your customer for complaining and mean it. Most will never bother to complain. They'll just walk away.    

One customer well taken care of could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising. 

It's called word of mouth marketing. A happy customer will tell 10 alike people to buy from you while an unsatisfied customer like me will be telling others to not buy from someone like you.

There are brands like Zara & Rolls Royce who don't need to advertise because their happy customers are doing that for them : ABSOLUTELY Free.

On the other hand, there's mediocre brands like MIVI who'd spend a good fortune on rebranding, logo change, signing brand collaboration but misunderstand the world of after the sale service.

Now a days I am seeing India's passion to be Vocal for local. It is something I stand for. But it equally levies responsibility on Indian brands like MIVI to follow international standards of customer service.

A shitty support service shouldn't be a reward to support an Indian brand.

As a customer, it's our responsibility to call spade a spade. If there's something that bothers us, say it.

And in the end, remember that if you don’t handle bad customer service and stand up for your rights — and seek to make up for lost time and money — no one else will.

I feel bad putting this information in public domain. This could have been solved on DMs and emails but at least I waited for 45 days before putting it out for everyone.

It is unclear who is really to blame here. Probably the company has bad technicians who can't clear the backlog of bad products piled up due to bad production quality.

Probably they added one year warranty cloze because all the earphones of same price range have one, but later realised they don't want to provide after the sale service, so they let support team waste cutomer's time to shoo them away. 

Probably they started receiving complaints from frustrated customers like me and invented this hack with the 'delay the reply as much as possible' phrase to have a quick fix.

In any case, arguing with the MIVI is useless. In most cases the underlying cause of the problem is much deeper (hiring process, motivation, training, vague policies, etc.) Blaming the support team, filing a complaint on email or tweet may change something and reduce the number of similar complaints in the future.

It doesn't leave us anywhere if the company truly just doesn't seem to care. So, it's wise to not purchase from a company like Mivi on whom you placed your trust and now you are being punished for that.