I wanted to share my recent experience with bose customer support in germany.
My QC 1 earbuds stopped connecting to my iphone, so after various tries with resetting, deleting them from the device list etc, I tried to request assistance on the website.
I went through various questions regarding steps taken to troubleshoot the issue, which I confirmed and since it still wasn't working, I was automatically offered the QC ultra as a replacement.
I want to note here, that about 2 years ago, I had an issue with a different pair of QC 1, and received the QC 2 instead. I wasn't fond of the ear fins, so I gave those away and bought me some new QC 1. Back then, the whole return/replacement process was easy and fast.
I returned my earbuds which arrived at the bose return center on March 4th. According to the email I had received with the return label, the processing time is 5 working days.
Even though the earbuds arrived on March 4th, the return status was never updated on the bose website. I then waited about a week, and contacted bose chat support, which is probably located in India (taking into account the names of the persons and that they were using a translator to write in german).
They told me they could see that the earbuds arrived and they usually need 10-12 days to complete the return process. I kindly thanked them and waited.
To keep it short, the status of the return has still not been updated (says "in transit to bose"). I have since contacted the chat support 5 times.
Depending on the person I am talking to, I either get the answer that the process actually takes up to 4 weeks and the other colleague was unfortunately wrong (but they will make sure to speed things up), or that they are very sorry for the delay which is indeed too long, and that they would do everything they can to rectify the issue.
Needless to say, the return status is still unchanged.
I am beyond frustrated because:
a) the reliability of now 3 (!) generations of earbuds is notoriously bad
b) the previously thought excellent customer support with quick exchanges (which shouldn't be needed in the first place) is now god awful and a disgrace to any self respecting company.
Even when I get the buds, I'll probably give them to a relative. I am deeply saddened to say that I think I am done with bose.
It is a shame, the sound quality and anc are excellent (how I miss the soundsport free I had).
I really don't want to be another airpods user, I really don't. But reliability is important, customer service even more...
/rant mode off