The popular Cybook eBook reader arrived today and we are shipping again" said Bob LiVolsi, President of BooksOnBoard (http://www.booksonboard.com/), the online eBook and audio book retailer.
BooksOnBoard remains the exclusive retailer of Cybooks for the US and Canada, although a buying club also exists for the US. "The good news and bad news is that we cannot keep them in stock" said LiVolsi, "Our Cybooks have consistently sold out within a week of their arrival here. Bookeen, the Cybook manufacturer, is working hard to catch up with demand" LiVolsi attributes the success of the Cybook to two primary factors:
(1) It is considerably lighter than the competing Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader;
(2) It reads Mobipocket format eBooks which are available from many eBook retailers and in which many customers have substantial libraries;
(3) The ease of loading eBooks made possible by Bookeen’s partnership with Mobipocket, a subsidiary of Amazon; (4) BooksOnBoard’s loyal customer base which has come to value the company’s responsive eBook support team.
The Cybook reads Mobipocket eBooks, both DRM and non-DRM. BooksOnBoard (http://www.booksonboard.com/), with possibly the largest eBook selection in the industry, carries the Mobipocket format ebooks from Mobipocket/Amazon, all of which can be read by the Cybook. BooksOnBoard offers almost 200,000 eBook and audio book titles in all major genres including romance, paranormal romance, thrillers, mysteries, romantic mysteries, biography and more.
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3 comments:
All very nice, but there is a real problem when it comes to customer support with the Cybook. If you don't return it within 7 days UNOPENED then you can't get a refund. So guess what - I opened it after a month and it was Dead On Arrival (not sure how I am expected to find out it was DOA without opening it - but I am sure they'll get back to me on that). After a bunch of try this, do that with their support team they finally asked me to submit it for repair - they didn't offer to replace it and weren't willing to refund my money as I requested! So now I have to submit a device I never managed to use for repair! So when buying from Books On Board - beware! Given that level of customer service - do they really think they can take on Amazon????? Of course,Bookeen the manufacturer doesn't believe this has anything to do with them since I didn't purchase it from them....
Jacob’s comment is not accurate. BooksOnBoard and Bookeen both went out of their way to help him. Both companies have an excellent track record of taking care of customers with BooksOnBoard having over 1,500 customer testimonials on file in just the last year. Both companies are disappointed that Jacob is unhappy. We choose to let the facts speak for themselves in the points below, allowing readers to ascertain for themselves how this was handled. We also welcome feedback re: the handling so that we might find improved ways to serve customers. Any time a customer ends up this unhappy, we know there must be a nuance we missed along the way, some lesson to be learned.
(1) BooksOnBoard does, in fact, accept opened product back as a return in spite of Jacob’s unfounded claim to the contrary. There is a 7 day refund policy, but it is very flexible in consideration of customer concerns. Had Jacob’s product arrived in our offices defective, we would certainly have entertained giving him a refund, but he still had not sent it 37 days after receiving it.
(2) BooksOnBoard tried to get the product back from Jacob to evaluate for repair, replacement or refund, but he insisted that BooksOnBoard not only pay the return shipment – which almost no retailer does – but on paying import duties from Israel where Jacob had traveled from Florida with the Cybook before “discovering” it was broken almost a month after receiving it.
(3) Jacob also insisted on a refund without returning the product and when told that could not be considered without BooksOnBoard or Bookeen seeing the product, he filed an action for a full refund through PayPal on April 22nd – seeking another way to get money back while still holding the product.
(4) Late on April 22, Jacob requested a refund – 34 days after first receiving the product – outside even the most generous electronics return policies. BooksOnBoard responded with the following: “Thank you for contacting us regarding the warranty return of your Bookeen Cybook. BooksOnBoard is happy to receive the return of your Cybook device and submit it to Bookeen Paris for evaluation of whether the necessary repairs are covered by the Bookeen Standard Warranty for their product. Our support staff has received forwarded emails from you that Bookeen has already communicated to you that they are willing to take shipment. We are the authorized Bookeen Cybook dealer for the United States and Canada. We do not ship Bookeen Cybook to additional international locations and therefore cannot assume liability for import tariffs which may be incurred by customers who transport the device outside of the United States. Again, BooksOnBoard is happy to receive and return your Bookeen Cybook for repairs under the conditions stated in our returns policy. We will happily pay return postage to ship the repaired Cybook to any U.S. or Canadian address. However, we do not offer refunds on Bookeen Cybook for situations that are covered by their product warranty.”
(5) On April 23rd, Jacob responded to the above: “So effectively you are telling me that you won't help… As I am sure you understand, your suggested solution doesn't solve my problem - I am abroad, not in the US, so how exactly does your solution help?”
(6) On April 24, BooksOnBoard, consistent with prior correspondence, wrote to Jacob: “We encourage you to return your unit either to Paris or to us… Once the unit has been seen and evaluated by Bookeen, we will all have more complete data to review options for resolution.”
(7) After persuading Jacob to return the device to Bookeen in Paris, Bookeen wrote Jacob on April 24: “Dear Sir, Here is the Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) procedure to follow. Please note that our team will do its best to replace your device as soon as we receive it.”
It is clear from the correspondence that both repair and replacement were never ruled out by either BooksOnBoard or Bookeen, even 37 days after Jacob first received the product. Instead, when the product finally arrived for evaluation in Paris, it turned out to have a smashed screen, having the clear characteristics of accident or mishandling since Jacob first received it, possibly in his travels between the US and Israel. (While Jacob gave us a Florida address for shipping, we subsequently learned his phone number is in Israel and that he transported the product there with him before requesting support for the first time 24 days after receiving the product. ) Nowhere in his prior correspondence does Jacob mention a problem with the screen, instead referring to an issue with the buttons. Of approximately 300 Cybooks shipped by BooksOnBoard, only 3 have had screen issues: one was covered by the optional BooksOnBoard Accidental Damage policy; in another case, the customer acknowledged inadvertently crushing it; and the third is Jacob’s.
BooksOnBoard has over 1,500 customer testimonials in the last 18 months. Jacob’s is an unusual case and we’re sorry it came down to his angry blogs and emails. We remain available to help Jacob, possibly doing something through our Accidental Damage Policy, but he has chosen instead to rage though email and blogs, foreclosing options for us to do the kinds of extraordinary things we try to do to help customers.
We hope that consumers will review the above data and judge the facts for themselves. We remain committed to outstanding customer service and fairness. When customers work with us, we work with them, going out of our way 7 days a week to help through our email support.
- A BooksOnBoard Employee
I purchased my Cybook through BooksOnBoard and am glad that I did. The customer service I have received from BooksOnBoard has been excellent - far beyond what I expected.
Within approximately six weeks of receiving my Cybook I broke the screen. I contacted the support staff at BooksOnBoard because the damage was not covered under warranty. I expected to be told that I would either have to pay a large amount of money to repair it or simply purchase a new Cybook because it couldn't be repaired. The next day I received an email from BooksOnBoard support staff telling me they were creating an Accidental Damage Plan to accommodate their customers - including making it available retroactively to customers who had purchased a Cybook before the plan was created.
Long story short... I have never received better customer service from any business/company. BooksOnBoard created an Accidental Damage Plan, made it available retroactively for customers who had already purchased a Cybook through them, allowed me to return my damaged Cybook to them while they finalized the Accidental Damage Plan (trusting me to purchase the plan when it was available and pay the deductible for the repair), sent my Cybook to Bookeen for repair, and returned my new Cybook device (the broken device had to be replaced) to me as soon as they received it from Bookeen.
The support staff member at BooksOnBoard who originally responded to my request handled everything from beginning to end - so I didn't have to explain what was going on to several people. He answered all of my questions, emailed me with updates or just to let me know that he hadn't forgotten about me when they were waiting to get my Cybook from Bookeen.
I love my Cybook!!! I have nothing but praises for the folks at BooksOnBoard and highly recommend them to anyone purchasing a Cybook or anything else they are selling.
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