Jabra Support -- Fantastic service

In contrast with my awful experience with Logitech support, Jabra was a delight to deal with.

The problem with my Jabra headset is almost identical to the one I had with my Logitech headset — the Logitech battery would only hold a charge for a few minutes, and the Jabra headset stopped charging altogether. It won’t even turn on. Either I have bad luck with headset batteries, or I’m doing something terribly wrong.

Expecting the worst, I emailed Jabra support and informed them of my problem. In about a day, I received an email back explaining that the problem is usually due to the charger being plugged in incorrectly and damaging the battery (I know I didn’t do this). The email then goes on to tell me that even if I was at fault and damaged the battery, Jabra will still replace it.

Bill from Jabra support says…

I apologize for the problems and inconvenience you are experiencing with your Jabra BT500. The mini-USB cable can be plugged into the BT500 the wrong way. Plugging in the wrong way will fry the battery, making the BT500 inoperable.

To check that you are plugging the mini-USB plug into the headset correctly, make sure the metal underside of the mini-USB cable contacts the small metal strip in the BT500 receptacle. If you did plug the mini-USB cable in the wrong way, the BT500 can still be replaced. If you are plugging the mini-USB cable in correctly, then there could be another problem with the headset requiring replacement.

How great is that? “Hey, it might be our fault or your fault. Don’t worry about it, we’ll replace it no matter what. And in case it’s your fault, here’s what you can do to keep it from happening again.”

They even give me some options for getting a replacement, trying to make things as convenient for me as possible.

In either case, if the headset is within the retailer return policy, you can return it for another one. If it is outside the retailer return policy, or the retailer won’t replace it, Jabra will replace it, provided the BT500 is within the Jabra one year warranty from date of purchase, and you can provide a copy of the original sales receipt to be sent along with the defective product. Should you want to obtain a replacement from Jabra, we will need you to reply to this email with the following information:

A lot of companies want to make returns convenient — for them. But Jabra wants to make it easy for me. Contrast this with Logitech’s support, where I was required to fax a copy of my receipt and prove that the unit was under warranty before they’d even talk to me. Then when I tried to faz it and received a constant busy fax machine, they blamed me for the problem and made me jump through hoops to get a mailing address to send the receipt to. When I finally mailed the receipt, it was rejected by the post office: no such address.

None of that with Jabra. “Hey, just email us your name and some information about what went wrong and we’ll send you back instructions for how to return it.”

I’ve got some complaints about how the Jabra headset works, but given that I’ve killed two headset batteries in one year, you can bet my future business will be with Jabra. Oh, and that page I have about Logitech’s broken support? It’s the #3 result on Google for “Logitech Support” right behind the official company web site. Ouch.