14 November 2017 update.
Current # of tickets: 5.877
1.744 new (created last week)
Average first reply time for new tickets: 10 days. (+1)
Dear Douwe,
please stop writing such messages and get your job done. It is understandable that a phone developed by a small company has some issues. I guess this is the risk we took when we bought this phone.
However, it is not acceptable that you guys do not handle those issues. Due to a broken display (the white noise problem, I think you are familiar with it) I’ve sent you a support request nineteen days ago, and I did not get any answer yet. Nineteen days! 48h are reasonable, I think. And if you are not able to answer my request in 48h, then hire more people.
You took my money. I accept that I got a phone not working perfectly. But at least answer my questions.
Regards
Wolfgang
1 Like
Hi Wolfgang,
sorry to hear that you didn’t get a response from Fairphone staff in time. But also understand @Douwe did not take your money, nor is he part of support team as far as I know, so he won’t personally be able to help you. Addressing the same problem twice via different channels won’t make the queue processing faster, but in fact slowing down.
Also don’t forget that this is a community forum. If you think you got a problem where other people may help you out, please write more information of this problem in the appropriate forum category.
5 Likes
Hey Wolfgang, as @amber rightly points out, I am not in the support team. My job is to collaborate with the community to promote the values of fair electronics using the Fairphone as an example.
One of the ways we try to do is, is by being transparent about how our new business is doing. I naturally share our victories, but I think that for a better understanding of what it takes to change the industry, it is also fair to share what does not go so well.
On our blog you can read a lot of articles about the difficulties Fairphone has to overcome in order to achieve change. Issues with spare parts, mineral sourcing, recycling are all talked about.
In my little corner of the Fairphone universe, I contribute my part by sharing this other bottle-neck; our customer support team. I hope that by sharing weekly numbers, people can get a better understanding of the challenges in this department.
Also, the support team is constantly trying to improve things; new people are hired, some tasks are outsourced, parts of the jobs get automated etc. etc. But as the amount of customers, partners and therefor issues is growing, they will probably not get to a final solution anytime soon. Good support is a moving target and they will need to keep on adapting.
Leaves me to say that I am very sorry to hear that in your case matters take this long and I truly hope a colleague of mine will get back to you soon.
15 Likes
21 November 2017 update.
Current # of tickets: 5.817
1.858 new (created last week)
Average first reply time for new tickets: 10 days. (+/- 0)
6 Likes
I wish you the best that the new support team members are already or at least will soon be fully operative as the # of new support tickets coming in seem to have increased steadily for the last about 6 weeks…
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Sharing some numbers and articles about how challenging your business is does not explain why on earth Fairphone have gotten in such a situation. Your reference to these sources sounds like “everything is very difficult” or “fast solutions do not exist” to me…
These numbers are not supposed to tell this, it just reflects what other vendors keep secret.
While from outside perspective things look easy, I disagree to your summary. Support is not an easy thing, and I personally think that Fairphone offers good quality phones. Also Fairphone has hired new support staff for the growing demands.
2 Likes
Well, just my guess (and therefore possibly totally wrong):
1- They had a great idea, that is shared by quite a lot of people.
2- So the developed a very innovative product.
3- To be able to stay true to their principles, they relied on crowdfunding instead of big money.
4- New product and new design usually leads to new troubles.
5- Limited money leads to limited chances to establish thorough quality control with suppliers.
6- And limited money leads to limited ressources for employing support; especially as Fairphone is not going the way of big companies outsourcing support to callcenters in India or Romania.
Points 4 and 5 explain a maybe higher amount of support requests compared to other companies.
Point 6 explains the long times it takes the support team to answer and the errors occuring.
2 Likes
Maybe you (i.e. Fairphone; someone from the team) should add the advice to call support with the “ticket number” to the support page.
There the list ends with “send us a support request” (IMEI and order number are asked for).
If that’s the fastest way, this could speed things up for your team and reduce frustration for the customers. (Or so I would think. ;))
2 Likes
This is the message that is sent out when you raise a ticket:
Dear customer,
Thank you for submitting your request to the customer support team about “”.
Your request number (also called ticket number) is #.
Please make sure you are running the latest software available for your Fairphone 2.
The last update we released is Fairphone OS 17.10.2. We provide monthly update to improve our software, include the latests security fixes and correct bugs, please keep your phone up-to-date.
You can also scroll through our frequently asked questions on our support section and make sure to have a look at our forum for answers to a wide variety of support issues.
Do not hesitate to get in touch with us by phone: from Monday to Friday 9:30 - 17:30 at +31 (0)20-788 4400.
Kind regards,
The Fairphone Team
2 Likes
Do you actually get that number via email? Cause I send a message to support on Monday and didn’t get any email back with the request number.
Is it immediately send, or do you receive that message within the 10 days of estimated reply time?
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Hey @Francois, the response with the ticket and telephone number is an automated responds that you should receive within a few minutes of submitting your request.
If you did not receive it, something has gone wrong. Either there was a glitch on our side, and we never received your email. Or your email was misspelled so our reply was lost, or our reply email ended in your spam/junk folder (a common thing to happen).
If our reply is not in your spam/junk folder, I am afraid you’ll have to re-submit your question at https://frphn.co/gethelp
4 Likes
Thanks Douwe, I actually checked my spam/junk folder just before posting here, in case. I guess I’ll re-submit my request. Nothing too urgent anyway, my translucent case that is now splitting.
I had exactly the same problem and reported it to support, following @anon73900052’s advice at FP2 cracked case after 3 weeks (see first post) - #59 by anon73900052
I got two e-mails from support: the first one asking me to check delivery address and preferred cover color and the second one telling me that they’ve sent out the replacement cover.
Calculated in “business hours” the entire process took only about 1,5 hours from when I raised the ticket until support ordered the replacement delivery!
After about 5 more days shipping time I could replace the defective case.
So I’m very happy with FP support and support reaction times! 
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Glad it was so fast for you! My ticket for the same problem has been sitting idle for 20 days now 
Well, either I was lucky or you were not, but my request was just answered and finalised today (so 2 days after opening the ticket).
Very good work support team (and especially Jevgeni) 
5 Likes
You should check, if something went wrong with your mail (spam-folder …).
I had the regular case replaced twice and it always took less than a week.
Did you add some othe requests to your ticket besides the broken cover? This could be a reason for delay.
1 Like
Cheers mate I have set the ticket priority to low which might explain the delay but I dont want to delay support for more important situations
6 Likes