As promised, this is us checking in with updates to bring you up to speed on what we have been doing on the issues we discussed last time.
1. We’re steadily rebuilding our Customer Support services
We have been gradually increasing our capacity internally, with more full-time additions to the customer support team who are being onboarded this week. Additionally, we now have an AI chatbot that customers can access 24/7, that has been trained on our knowledge base. We are currently expanding this knowledge base with even more support articles as we speak. Both the knowledge base and the AI chatbot will help basic troubleshooting and speed up after-sales processes. If more assistance is necessary, the support team will be available to help customers further via a ticket.
2. Android 15 is coming soon.
We are still fully focused on the Android 15 upgrade for Fairphone 4 users, and are waiting on some suppliers to come through to share a definitive release date. As soon as we have something more concrete to share, this forum will be the first place we post it. Meanwhile, we are aiming to roll out Android 15 for Fairphone 5 users by the end of July.
3. Reassurance
As most of you must have seen by now, we launched a new phone last week!
A new device doesn’t, and shouldn’t, take away from supporting our older devices, and this message is also intended to reassure you about exactly that.
This community of ours is special. It is what makes Fairphone unique, and why all of you will always be our guiding light.
Once again, thank you for supporting Fairphone, and what we’re doing.
Every time a new FP is announced there are these promises that updates will be more timely, support will be improved, etc., and yet all the issues that were there with previous phones are still there and are already cropping up with FP6. At this point these statements are meaningless without action to back them up. Do better, a lot better.
I just want to say, that I am happy that you now understand how much it is to communicate towards the community. Many companies never understood and slowly transformed brand loyalty into brand indifference at the very best. But as long as there is a clear interest to communicate, then it is okay if you stumble on the way, because we are not left in the dark.
Thank you
I don’t think your negativity is well placed. Do you have any metrics that say nothing has changed? They provided information about what they did and what is planned, do you have any proof its a lie. Don’t get me wrong, you are entitled to opinion, but its posts like yours that makes companies not want to communicate. Because then its lose-lose - “no communication” = hatred, “communication” = hatred. Well guess what is easier to choose in such case. Please appreciate more the effort done rather than things that are not YET done.
Great to hear that the support team is growing, I hope this is several people, not just one.
Mention of AI chatbots makes me nervous, I always find them a complete waste of my time because by the time I get to the point where I feel I need to contact customer services I’ve already tried everything I can find in the wikis, knowledge bases, forums, etc. I know it’s the current trend in customer support, to have an AI chatbot that acts as the gatekeeper to real people, but industry trends aren’t something that Fairphone normally enjoys following, so I hope that in this case you make it easy to bypass the bot and allow us to interact directly with your helpful and clever staff, because they’ll be infinitely times more capable than any AI chatbot.
It seems it is quite easy to bypass a bot but only within the designated official chat hours, otherwise you are asked for your name and some basic info.
My experience is quite positive. I enquired about the Keep Club glitch, and got the info it has been recognised and being working on and is to be expected to improve with no further action needed on my side. I did not need (to trouble) a human agent for that so I would say it was a good use of resources.
Can you confirm the current target time for dealing with outstanding support tickets? Many of us have been waiting several months for a resolution and would like information on how much longer we need to wait.
Some form of compensation, even just in terms of good will gestures, would be welcome, too.
You have a lot of work to do to rebuild trust that has been badly damaged over the last six months or so. Updates like this one are welcome, but specifics would be better.
Yes, I agree - it would be good to know what’s happening with outstanding tech support requests. My FP5 usb connection now only charges and I logged the support call on 29th April. I’ve not had anything at all since the initial acknowledgment. I do think 2 1/2 months to respond is quite poor.
Please Fairphone - at least send us something so we know we are still on your list. At the moment it feels like we’ve been abandoned.
I’m going to commit forum heresy here and reply to myself! Sorry in advance.
I used the live chat feature on the FP website today. While opening hours are very short, the service I received today was outstanding. In total contrast to the lengthy delays previously.
I would still welcome more detail on FP’s customer service targets this experience has done a great deal to indicate that things are looking positive.
Totally agree regarding the AI bot: utterly dreadful. I believe there is human support chat available Mon-Fri: 10:00-12:00. The hours are hilariously short but it is much much better when speaking to a real person!
It is accessed through the support chat icon on the homepage. I had to type in ‘request human agent’ to stop it prompting me to use the AI bot.
