One Hour Was Enough: Returning TomTom

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Apr 13, 2013
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I'm fed up with companies like TomTom. They sell products with virtually no support, not explanations, no documentation. I bought a Tomtom GPS, opened the box top find that there was 0 documentation. It tells you to go online to "getstarted." There is no explanation there about what to do. I couldn't find my model listed anywhere. I downloaded some software and plugged in the gps and turned it on. While trying to look through the screens, a screen suddenly appeared with a time counting down. No explanation. The gps went off. I started it up again. Same thing happened. After a while, a concluded that it was going some sort of automatic software download, but there was no explanation what ever. Entering address is terrible. And sometimes I ended up with screens that I had no idea what they were for.

Perhaps the most gauling part of the experience is that you cannot contact Tomtom. They don't show a simple email address or even a simple form. They have some big rigamarole you have to go through, which I couldn't get to work.

I'm fed up with companies too lazy and too cheap to provide reasonable documentation and reasonable support. They want to drop all the responsibility on to the user, so that they save the cost of producing proper manuals and hiring more support staff. And then they put up as many barriers as possible to prevent you from contacting them directly. I don't even both with phone numbers anymore since it usually means at least 1/2 hour on hold. Yeah, this rant is about more than just TomTom, but the last hour that I've spent trying to get their product to work is the last straw.

Incidentally, the device itself is junk. It refused to lock on to a satellite. The screen lag time was far to long. The address entry screen is a joke. The keyboard takes up almost the entire screen so you can see only 1 or 2 possible matches. To see the rest, you have to dismiss the screen. If what you want is not there. You have to go back to the keyboard and block the screen. It's just ridiculous.

Incidentally, I have been a professional software/product developer for many years and taught the subject a universities. This is why companies like TomTom are so aggravating. I know how it should be properly done and the only reason that they don't do it is to save money. Younger people seem to take all this incompetence for granted because they don't know any better. It looks like the TomRoms of the world have managed to recruit the users as unpaid employees, which is exactly what this form is for. Instead of supplying any support, they let the users do it for them for free
 
Just out of curiosity --- what model do you own?

It's not just TomTom. The trend to online documentation has overtaken a great many industries, and IMHO it's particularly annoying for consumer products. I just picked up another Garmin handheld the other day. Same story. Even their online documentation is pretty weak -- there's an entire user supported Wiki to explain the finer points of using these things.

So while I sympathize with your issues, it's a trend that isn't unique to TomTom, and unless/until the consumer gets a message across that is heard, I'm afraid we're in for more of this same approach to documentation.

There's a good chance we can get that unit sorted that you bought if you like. And TomTom does have a toll free customer service that can/could be used if it does come to that. 866-486-6866
 
Perhaps the most gauling part of the experience is that you cannot contact Tomtom. They don't show a simple email address or even a simple form. They have some big rigamarole you have to go through, which I couldn't get to work.

Whilst I agree that a proper paper manual should always be included, I'm a bit confused by that statement...

Maybe it's different on your country's website, but I just went to www.tomtom.co.uk, clicked on "Support" and then right in front of me was a "Contact us" link.

I needed to tell them what model I owned and what my question was about, but that doesn't seem too much of a rigmarole (the same method gets you straight to the on-line manual).

At the bottom of that page is a button to email them and another button presents you with their phone number. Seems easy to me!




The screen lag time was far to long. The address entry screen is a joke. The keyboard takes up almost the entire screen so you can see only 1 or 2 possible matches. To see the rest, you have to dismiss the screen. If what you want is not there. You have to go back to the keyboard and block the screen. It's just ridiculous.

There I can completely agree with you. The worst of it is that the OLD models were far better in this respect!
The response was much "snappier" and the keyboard at least allowed you to select BOTH of the top two entries (not just the very top one).
Many of their improvements in the user interface have made it worse (another example is the keyboard USED to have the numbers on it when you most needed them - entering postcodes, but some idiout said it needed to be bigger, so they removed the numbers but still didn't improve the individual button size significantly at all.
 

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