good physical product (Radiator), but horrible end-user aftersales / tech support
I purchased Terma Heat radiator with smart VEO heating element in the UK. The radiator and heating element themselves came in decent quality and were relatively straightforward to install (by our bathroom installers).
However, we very quickly discovered that the smart heating element is not straightforward to set up as the Terma Smart iOS app is an absolute puzzle, with not much guidance coming from an official manufacturer’s manual in English. For example:
1. If I switch off the zone on Zones tab, the radiator (which sits in this zone) is still showing as powered on – so why is there switch on/off on Zones tab? Furthermore, if I switch off manually from the VEO controller by pressing “+” and “-“ for 5s, as per manual, then visually controller looks OFF, but it still shows as ON in the app (on Devices tab). Subsequently company rep admitted that’s confusing.
2. Under Devices tab:
- I asked to let me know what “Dryer mode” is in the app – none of the manuals coming with the radiator and heating element explains it. What does this function do specifically – we guessed from desc of other heating elements on Terma website that it switches on the radiator for a certain period at max output and then switches to previous regime. But on what power and for how long does it switch on my particular radiator with VEO heating element? Why manual doesn’t cover this basic info?
- What is ‘Heating level’ option (ranging from 50% to 100%)? Again none of the manuals addressed this
- What is ‘Heating power’ option and what should I select?
We did what would normally be done in such situations - reached out to the ultimate product sellers in the UK - Terma Products (UK) Ltd, hoping to get some tech support over phone (I hate trouble shooting over emails). After long and inefficient back-and-forth with Terma UK Aftersales team taking weeks and even months, led by a person named Fiona, it became apparently clear that nobody in the UK office is having enough product knowledge / expertise / willingness to support end customers. The situation escalated to the whole Terma Products (UK) Ltd general manager Alex who explained that the tech support apparently sits in Poland, acknowledging that the situation and interaction between UK and Poland’s offices is inefficient and at times frustrating. Alex and Fiona admitted that the original developer of Terma Smart app went bankrupt and that there was a different IT company (not Terma Heat which themselves produces radiators and heating elements) that took over the maintenance of the app. I was then passed over to the Poland’s support contact called Dariusz. He was actually quite helpful and explained to me all the questions on the app, admitting that indeed the app is not very intuitive and confusing.
A year or so later we have another question as we needed to transfer smart heating element from one Wi-Fi network to another. Unfortunately, by that time Dariusz resigned. So when I contacted Fiona’s office in the UK (who again had absolutely no clue when I explained her and her team the problem), she put me in touch with chap in Poland named Kamil who was absolutely useless, effectively refusing to jump on the call and trouble shoot. He just passed the hot potato (i.e. us) back to Fiona.
Absolutely ridiculous - I am now worried that very soon the app maintenance is deprecated completely and then we are going to be left with a useless piece of metal hanging from the wall!
@Terma: please step up -
a) if you sell smart products in the markets outside Poland - then boost respective country offices with tech support personnel to assist the end-user. Your Poland staff is not coping.
b) make Terma Smart app and manual more intuitive.
c) get rid of incompetent staff globally who not just refuse to help themselves but don’t understand stand that “customer is king”. They should own the case and get it over to the logical conclusion when existing customer is fully satisfied - so if they don’t know how to help themselves they need to push to find the right contacts internally (in my case they don’t). Culture needs to change and usually that comes with changing management of respective departments (aftersales / tech support).