Friday 22 April 2016

An Open Letter to Mi India

Dear Mi India this is a concatenation of sorts, for all the comments on your various pages, be it on posts or as replies to other
comments. I'm just a student that had issues with his old phone and urgently needed to buy a new phone. After a bit of research I figured Redmi Note 3 (32GB) would be a great phone for my budget. What I didn't realize is what was to follow. I can say I'm a veteran of Flash sales now that I've been through about 5 of them. Heck, I didn't feel this bad when I failed the IIT JEE entrance exam.
The Flash Sale is literally that. It doesn't even last as long as it takes to flash. Although that wasn't the original intention behind the name I'm sure you get the irony.
I've waited through 5 Flash sales as of today, including the ones on mi.com and Amazon. I understand I'm nobody special and tons of other people are in the same precarious gadget-busting state I'm in. But it is really frustrating (read punch-through-screen-of-laptop frustrating) to see the same "wait in line -> out of stock" message all the time.
You can read all the comments people have posted and while the grammar may be questionable, the very motivation behind them posting it needs to be accounted for. That should be the spur you need to do whatever it is to get more 32GB models out here in the Indian Market.
Now I understand there are a lot of decisions to be made and a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes and maybe you're already focusing on increasing the quantity of your stock, but sir, this is the second-largest (if not the largest) market for your phones and if you've got the nerve to launch a 3GB/32GB smartphone in the sub-15k segment then at least have the numbers to back it up.
All I see happening as of now is that there are about 750 reviews on Amazon about the Redmi Note 3 and about 625 of them are basically rants from angry/irritated/annoyed/frustrated Indian customers. Barely 70 reviews (most of them, stellar, kudos to you guys and your product) actually even relate to post-purchase experiences.
Now I'm a student, Sir, and as students we want the best of products available in the market for ourselves. Obviously, I'm going to bide my time till I can get my hands on the phone in spite of the routine angry calls and messages I get from the 6 friends I have that are all trying to buy the phone for my sake (because with the phone I have currently, I can barely manage calling, let alone Whatsapp and so on) after every Flash Sale. If this is the situation of just one customer that too with 6 people trying to help buy the phone, imagine the levels of patience your other customers may be having and how frustrated they may get.
Now I'm patient enough to type out this long message without even expecting it to be published anywhere just as long as someone from Mi India/Redmi India gets this message : "Bhai, please Jaldi Karo. Vaat lag rahi hain hamari yahaan pe wait karte karte."
In conclusion all I would like to say is imagine the levels of dedication we have to Mi India and how much we love your product for me to type out a message longer than the essay I wrote in my board exams, at this point when there's ten assignments pending for submission. Engineering is a bitch, but it's worse when you don't have a phone in your hand to help you get through it.
P.S: If you're still going ahead with a Sale akin to all these Flash Sales you've had where the phone gets sold out in about 0.1 microseconds, please reserve some phones and have a Flash Sale every hour for ten pieces. That way, at least the disappointment will be mitigated by fooling us customers into believing we have ten tries to buy it rather than the usual single valiant effort it takes.
P. P. S: I deserve at least an F-code (no jokes on this, I know how it sounds) for typing this out if not the patience of surviving 5 Flash Sales.
P. P. P. S: This should have begun my message, but anyway here it is. How did you even expect people to buy the 16GB variant when you offered a 32GB one for INR 2000 more. Didn't you know we're greedy rascals (in this regard)?
Thanks!
Yours (relatively) frustrated-ly,
A Sincere Fan.

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