I open this post to complain about the bad communication of Purism.
I do not check the Purism website every day but I still bought their phone and I was never notified (by email) about any of the delays. In addition, the news talking about the delays aren’t stating it clearly from the title. For instance the first delay was announced in a single line at the middle of a technical news.
I’m really considering asking for a refund at this point because I believe that behaviour to be highly unrespectful. As a customer who should have received this phone a year and a half earlier (at least until the next delay), it is not acceptable at all.
I understand there can be problems on the road but it is not asking too much just to be notified about them without having the browse all the news at a regular basis.
I’m very disappointed with the Purism way of treating us.
I’m pretty sure you don’t give a shit about me. BTW, people are posting elsewhere weird emails from Chinese suppliers giving dates for orders with creepy sentiments about how great the PRC is and implying they may be going to work ill :0 I would rather wait forever than have something like that happen because of something I demanded.
You have a solid point on lack of notifications. I hadn’t really thought about it before because I check their site and forums regularly; the only emails I have gotten were to confirm my purchase and to ask me which pre-order batch I prefer, no confirmation of which batch I’m in not any notification of the delays (not just the COVID-19 related delay but the other delays as well).
I would point out that they have been fairly consistent with posting news posts about all updates, including delays; there’s definitely some marketing spin used with the delays including sandwiching the bad news between pieces of good news (though I expect this from any company since the majority of customers have a tendency to freak out if you’re too upfront with them).
I don’t recall any delays not getting a blog post, and while I do think it would be more transparent to have those delays have their own post and email, I understand that would have its own backlash. I can’t say which way is worse and I’ve said a few times (both publicly and privately) that I think the communication could be improved; I also haven’t personally had any useful suggestions for how to improve the communication (though after seeing this I would suggest emailing out the same content of the blog posts when there is a delay, maybe even a more direct email with a link to the full article?)
@Loceka do you have any further specific suggestions that would improve the communication for you?
Personally, I already got what I paid for (contributions to Free software) in 2017, but even if someone were feeling dissatisfied were you really going to spot the legal fees for whatever action ?
I think you may be looking at this through your own lens and not considering there are other experiences.
Some of us were later to the party and did not crowdfund an idea, but rather bought a product. And Purism has, so far, provided refunds to those whom have chosen to cancel their product purchase.
I’m not sure what legal fees you think would be accrued by canceling an order and asking for a refund, but generally they’re non-existent.
Well, that’s the thing, he’s posting to fellow customers (we can’t give him a refund even if we agreed it was in order). Contacting customer service seems like a no brainer, so what’s the motivation here (what does he want from fellow customers ?) The only thing I can think of is that he wants us to join some sort of action.
I can’t speak to motivation, maybe just needed to vent and be heard, maybe testing the waters to see if their thoughts are out of line (I’ll do that sometimes, vent about something that’s bothering me to see if I’m alone or if others have the same frustration) maybe plotting the nefarious demise of purism one forum post at a time, or maybe 1000 other things.
Instead of projecting, and starting off as if this was a personal attack, it might be helpful to try and observe from their viewpoint. This thread had no allusions to the COVID-19 delays until your post and was a complaint about the communication of the delays not the fact that there have been delays.
Yes this is a user forum, purism employees do frequent the forums and see the unofficial feedback from the community and it even has an impact on the business so voicing a complaint on the forum isn’t automatically a bad thing and, as long as someone isn’t communicating in a way that suggests they’re expecting an immediate official response from Purism employees, I’m personally of the opinion that talking publicly on the forum is not a bad thing at all. I didn’t read this as expecting an official immediate response so I think letting people talk about facts in a respectful manner is a good thing.
If you have no suggestions for how purism could improve communication do you maybe have some suggestion for what was missed to receive email communications about delays? Maybe you’ve gotten the emails that would have been appreciated by others and sharing what you did different would be helpful.
It’s not a personal attack, I’m just wondering who this ‘us’ is if it doesn’t include me (which it doesn’t btw)
Also,
I got an email and it said:
Your estimated shipping batch:
“Evergreen” Batch - Starts March 31st
Please understand that this is an estimate–some people’s batch assignment might
change to a sooner or later batch as we continue to process orders. You will
receive another email (to verify your shipping address, among other details)
when your Librem 5 is getting ready to ship to you.
If you need further help or have questions, please DO NOT reply directly to
this email, but instead write a new email with your order number in the
subject line, to the following addresses:
Librem.5.Shipping@puri.sm — if you wish to change your batch preference
info@puri.sm — if you have general question
support@puri.sm — if you need other type of support
It’s only March 2nd.
Also, I had some issues using a debit card when I first ordered in 2017 so I have a whole chain of emails sorting that and I’ve been exceptionally happy with customer care
The poor communication complain is popping up now and then on this forum. And while there’s certain improvement in some areas overall state is not far from where it was all this time along.
Just checked my mailbox and I found only 5 mails from Puri.sm for 3.5 years
Considering Feb’19 update was issued at time of pre-order deadline overall pattern seems to be - no (excessive) communication until it affects you directly. Which is fine by me. Not ideal but acceptable. Better than some other campaigns which spammed me every week so that I’ve redirected them to junk folder
Exactly. If the person who started this topic wants Purism to change then it would be necessary to contact Purism about it. There’s nothing that the people responding so far can actually do.
Same. But if you didn’t and you wanted an official update, you would email Purism and ask.
It’s been stated many times on this forum by many people that they would rather purism stay busy working and developing rather than giving periodic updates, so if that’s the general attitude this statement makes no sense. Now the users here would rather have individuals contact purism and waste more time responding to individual emails than putting out regular updates? Personally I would rather see monthly status updates akin to what pine64 does, for those that say it’s wasted time should keep in mind pine64 has way less resources to “waste” to give regular updates and yet we still see them
They have customer service people who answer emails. Them doing their job wouldn’t take away from phone development, while phone devs taking the time to fill out blog posts would.
OK a lot of passion here. Thanks to OpojOJirYAlG for getting my point.
So the main question here seems to be “why did I start a forum post instead of contacting Purism directly?”.
Well part of me probably wanted to share my frustration about not being notified about the delays. And I only mean the delays, I do not want to be notified about each and any update on the project like I’ve seen above. For me it is basic communication : they have the email of all the backers still expecting to receive their phone, the phone will be delayed from January to September, I notice those who expected to receive it by email. It only seems legit.
If I am the only one here who doesn’t think it legit well maybe I’m wrong. But if I ain’t and many people manifest themselves in that post (and that was the main point of doing it), then maybe Purism will rethink their policy of what’s important to tell to their backers as I don’t believe a single mail from me to Purism would have had any impact.
So yes, I could read the news (and blog now I’m aware of it) on regular basis to see every update but I don’t just hang on the net all day long so I don’t spend my life on blogs/facebook/twitter and any kind of news related sites. And since a 9 month delay, followed by 2 other 4 month delays (maybe I’m wrong in the figures, my apologies) are pretty much a big deal (especially on an initially 2 years project), I would have expected to be notified on that.
And I was backing for a product. I don’t own a smartphone and don’t plan on owning one unless it provides the kind of security insurances the Librem 5 have. So when I heard of the Librem 5 project I thought “yeah at last I will have a smartphone!”.
I contribute to free software on other ways but I do want that phone (or a similar one offering personal privacy) and that is why I join this project, not for the sole beauty of it.
And as it was previously written too, I don’t believe it would be soooo time consuming to notify customers on deadline changes by email when you have a team dedicated to writting articles and doing videos on regular basis, it’s just an email to a list of people.
I don’t really remember getting the customer service-y feeling when I had my issue (still pleasant, just not ‘canned’ :)). I just looked their name up, yeah, I was dealing with Director of Operations at Purism according to linked in. They really are doing more with less and really are super busy.
Back when the campaign was going on, many held that view, including me.
Personally I’d say it got a lot better along the way, especially during Q4 2019.
And since @hackersgame took over presenting updates early this year, there’s really no lack. More than 20 phone related blog posts this year!
(See Chronology)
Now, I get you would like to be informed by email. Especially about delays.
First I was a bit surprised by that, wondering
“Why do I get such emails and they don’t?”
It’s because I signed up to the newsletter during the campaign. You can still sign up on the bottom of https://puri.sm
They sent 4 in December, 0 January and one in February, including the Corona delay.
They went to the trouble to photograph an old Bell but not too old. The dial is new enough to be plastic instead of steel, but the handset is not so new that it has a 4P4C jack, cable is molded into the handset.
Thank you for this, I either did not know about or forgot about there being a newsletter and it’s good to know it seems to be the exact kind of email notifications I would be hoping for (high priority only not every blog post).
