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Product Review: Roku – Guilty Pleasure and Productivity Killer

Bill Hibbler · Leave a Comment

I’ve never been a big TV guy. I love to watch movies and have had a good home theater setup for over a decade.

I jumped on the Netflix bandwagon early on and when they started offering streaming video, I watched a few movies that way. But watching a movie on my PC isn’t the same as seeing it on the big screen so I rarely indulged.

Then I heard about the Roku box. The Roku allows you to stream movies on your regular TV. The $99 box lets you watch Netflix, Amazon On-Demand TV shows and movies as well as videos from smaller niche networks in HD quality. You can also stream music from Pandora through the Roku.

If you’re a Netflix customer, there are alternatives to the Roku box. The service is also offered via many blu-ray DVD players, some newer TV’s as well as via several of the game boxes like the Wii, Playstation and the Xbox.

Roku -noun: a company with extremely poor customer service

For a company that’s the exclusive stand-alone streaming media box for Netflix, I was really surprised at Roku’s customer service.

I ordered my Roku box through the company website and the first unit was dead on arrival. I immediately submitted a request for a new unit detailing exactly what happened and what I’d tried to remedy the situation. I’m fairly tech savvy and usually know what to try to make sure the unit is actually defective and the problem isn’t operator error.

A full two business days later, the following email arrived formatted just like you see below.

Dear Bill,
Thank you for contacting ROKU customer service. My name is Apparjith and I will be assisting you with your query.
Kindly go through the following instructions.
1.Push and hold the reset button which is on the rear side of the Roku player.
2.Release the reset button after 30 seconds
3.Unplug and reconnect the power cable after 30 seconds.
4.Redo the setup of the player.
Note : For all the new models of the Roku player you could find the reset button which looks like a small
tiny hole at the bottom of the Roku player.
Please feel free to email us for further queries.
Thank you for providing us with an opportunity to assist you and thank you for choosing ROKU.
Regards,
Apparjith
Roku customer service

I knew from Roku’s online discussion forum that this is the email they send out regardless of the issue. In other words, if I wrote in to say the unit burst into flames and melted into a puddle, they’d still send out this same email.

If I buy a piece of electronic gear and it arrives DOA, I expect the company to overnight a replacement along with a pre-paid label to ship the defective unit back to them. What Roku had in mind was putting me through a 3-4 day process of exchanging emails before they’d take action.

From the forums, I know others have tried threatening to call the Better Business Bureau, the Attorney General’s office and so on with little success. I decided to go right for the jugular.

Once they started to give me the runaround, I wrote in saying I wanted a tracking number indicating a replacement was on the way within 24 hours or I was going to call my credit card company and have them issue a charge-back. I further explained, in case the rep wasn’t familiar with the term charge-back, that a charge-back would not only mean they’d lose the initial order and pay an additional $30-35 fee but that they’d be in danger of losing their merchant account. Which means Roku would unable to accept orders on their website which would further mean that the rep would be shortly be out of work.

Three days later, I got this email:

Dear Bill,
Thank you for contacting ROKU customer service. My Name is Danny and I will be helping you with your query.
We will pre ship a replacement unit for you, along with a shipping label. Kindly use the shipping label to send us your unit.
Please note: If we do not receive you faulty unit, you will be charged the retail price within 30 days.
Please feel free to write to us if you have further questions or issues.
Thank you for providing us with an opportunity to assist you and thank you for choosing ROKU.
Regards,
Danny
Roku Customer service.

Can you believe that in 2010, a mainstream company is sending out emails that look like they were sent out by a Ukrainian spammer?

Anyway, a few days later a 2nd Roku arrived and, believe it or not, it was defective, too. I know that in Japanese, Roku means the number six. I was starting to wonder if they’d chose that name because that’s how many units you have to go through to find one that works.

Another round of emails with Danny and Apparjith and, finally, I got a working unit.

Roku in Action

The Roku is designed to connect to your router via network cable or wirelessly. My router and modem are by the TV so I went the hard-wire route.

For the most part, the picture is flawless. Occasionally, the unit times out but within a few seconds it’s back to normal. 90 percent of the time, the picture is superior to what I get from the cable box and I get 5.1 channel audio.

I watch movies on the Roku but also, Netflix service includes many TV shows minus the commercials. So I’m able to watch shows like Lost, 24 or The Sopranos in just over 40 minutes rather than an hour. Saves me 20 minutes, right? The problem is it’s highly addictive and it’s easy to get caught up and watch several episodes back to back.

Ax the Cable

One thing I’ve noticed is that I haven’t used the cable box once since getting the Roku. In fact, I’m considering turning cable TV off and cutting my bill in half. (I also have Internet access from the cable company).

There’s no extra charge from Netflix for streaming video. In fact, since getting the Roku, I cut my Netflix account to one DVD at a time rather than two. So for less than ten bucks a month, I get all the video entertainment I need.

Hopefully Roku gets their act together when it comes to customer service. If not, watch for one of the larger electronics company to knock them out of the way. As it is, I think we’ll see more DVD players and TV’s including the Netflix feature in the near future.

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Filed Under: Customer Service, Product Reviews Tagged With: Customer Service, Product Review, Roku

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BIll Hibbler

Hi there, I'm Bill Hibbler. Marketing and Media Consultant, Best Selling Author, Speaker & Recovering Music Biz Exec. CEO at Gigtime Media and Gigtime Dental Marketing.

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