Google Makes Nice With Nexus Customers

It's no secret that Google's (GOOG) new Nexus One smartphone has been something of a bust. Not least to the embarrassed engineers at Google, who were reeling from a chorus of customer complaints just days after the January launch. Now the company's trying, however belatedly, to do something about it.

Take the return fees, for example. Customers around the country bought the Nexus phone sight unseen, as per Google's directives. But they quickly realized that it suffered from a variety of problems, including spotty, problematic 3G coverage. So many wanted to return it and liberate themselves from a two-year T-Mobile contract to service a mediocre product. Oh, but that's a problem; T-Mobile charged a $200 early termination fee, and Google slapped these unhappy customers with an additional $350 return fee. So if you just wanted to undo the mistake you made by buying a product over the Internet (and who hasn't?), you had to pony up $550 for the option.

Needless to say, this didn't go over well with people. And so Google has announced that it will reduce the return fee to $150. You don't have to be Google's biggest critic not to be impressed with this offer; after all, you're still out $350. And as eWeek's Clint Boulton notices, Google did this only after the Federal Trade Commission started investigating possibly predatory early termination fees among the telecoms; FTC officials recently sent letters to a variety of companies, including T-Mobile and Google, asking whether customers are adequately notified of the fees when they buy their products. So scratch that as a gesture of good corporate citizenship.

Speaking of that erratic 3G coverage, Google is also offering a software patch that should help that problem. This at least actually addressed customer complaints rather than throwing a bone out to mollify the outrage Googlemasses.

And speaking of customer complaints, one of the biggest was that Google never set up a customer help line to deal with irritated buyers who found themselves without 3G coverage. Customers were reduced to calling the manufacturer HTC and T-Mobile, or e-mailing Google and hoping that they'll eventually get a response. Now Google has announced that it's set up a call service for Nexus One customers—but only to answer questions about when you'll get the phone shipped to you. Those who have the phone and aren't happy with the way it works will still have to call HTC—in Taiwan.

All told, these fixes won't do much to appease unhappy customers, except for Linus Torvalds, we suppose. Take Fortune writer Michael Copeland, who just returned his Nexus phone and wrote a "Dear John" letter explaining why. Never mind the inadequate 3G coverage or oblivious customer relations; those are just among the problems. The battery is weak, and the virtual keyboard is glitchy. Plenty of rival phones have raised the performance standard for smartphones, and Google, Copeland sadly claims, just doesn't compete.