ASUS, the hardware manufacturer best known for its various brands, including ASUS ROG, ProArt, and TUF Gaming, has agreed to make several updates to the way that it handles its customer service and warranties for the US region, including not only refunds of service charges for unnecessary repairs, but also the implementation of a new support center and task force, according to a list of “committed changes” that have been shared by tech outlet GamersNexus. Steve Burke, who heads the site and its YouTube channel, confronted customer service leaders at ASUS in what looked like a police interrogation, per a video that was uploaded a few days ago.
ASUS’ committed changes include:
- “ASUS now has a new inbox called ‘executivecare@asus.com’ that they have created specifically to re-process prior RMAs that customers feel were unfairly classified, were misclassified, or charged for a service that should be free.”
- “ASUS has provided a template to copy and paste into your email to this address. You can visit gamersnexus.net to find a copy of this to copy and paste.”
- “ASUS has published a timeline for improvements: June 14th, today, is the publication of this email and template. ASUS has promised us an email this month with other changes.”
- “ASUS has committed to refunds of service charges for unnecessary repairs which customers felt compelled to accept in order to have a warranted repair covered, such as unrelated or misclassified CID.”
- “ASUS has committed to refunding shipping charges in scenarios where a warranted repair was part of the RMA. For clarity, if a customer has both an out-of-warranty repair and an in-warranty repair in the same claim, shipping will be covered by ASUS.”
- “ASUS has committed to refunding labor and taxes related to these aforementioned qualifying disputes.”
- “ASUS has created a Task Force team to retroactively go back through a long history of customer surveys that were negative to try and fix the issues.”
- “ASUS has removed the power from the repair centers to claim CID. Now, CID claims must go through ASUS’ team. This will remove some of the financial incentive to fail devices. There still is one, but now it won’t be motivated as much by speed.”
- “ASUS is creating a new support center in the US. This will enable customers to choose between a repair of their board or a faster swap with a refurbished board. This solves an issue where refurbs were the only option in some scenarios previously.”
- “After over a year of refusing to acknowledge the microSD card reader failures on the ROG Ally, ASUS will be posting a formal statement next week about the defect, resulting from this series.”
- “ASUS will publish a more transparent repair report template in September of 2024.”
- “ASUS is changing the Advance RMA language to reduce emphasis on physical damage.”
How Burke’s visit with ASUS played out:
A note about ROG Ally issues:
ASUS will be making a statement next week about its ongoing microSD Card slot failures on the ASUS ROG Ally (which affected our original review unit). During the course of our discussion, we brought the failures up in a way that ASUS briefly, or maybe accidentally, acknowledged. This may be why the company is now moving to publicly acknowledge it. We think this is a good thing, as customers should know that it is a confirmed issue.