How Retailers Create Customer Service Issues

The amount of money a firm has to spend on customer service often is directly related to the way it sells, and what it sells. Mobile phones, for example, can be complicated products for consumers to learn how to use. As any mobile retailer will attest, device complexity ("I can't get it to work") is a major cause of device returns in the first several weeks many users have new devices.

One way to reduce the volume of such returns is to design user interfaces so they are more intuitive. The other tactic is to conduct better in-store training for consumers, or to automate set-up processes. For some Android retailers, the processes haven't been optimized, with predictable results.

"Most manufacturers are facing: the return rate on some Android devices is between 30 and 40 percent, in comparison to the iPhone 4′s 1.7 percent return rate as of Antennagate in 2010," says John Biggs of TechCrunch. Returns cost money, because they require time taken away from other revenue-generating activities.

It appears many developers of Android devices, and their retailers, haven't quite gotten the "ease of use" and therefore "ease of sales" issues resolved.

Android’s Returns Are 30-40%