The PhoneBoy Blog

Nokia Finally Reissues My Ovi Store Download

09 Sep 2009

While i’ve complained about Nokia‘s Ovi Store a couple of times on my blog, I figure I should come back and tell everyone that while the road was long, the story finally had a happy ending.

After I got my last email from Nokia Care related to my saga of the reformatted phone with an Ovi Store purchase on it,  I got a customer care survey. Having worked in a Nokia support organization, I am familiar with these surveys. I also know that our little part of Nokia (which is now part of Check Point Software Technologies) took those surveys very seriously. So I filled it out to see what would happen.

The general flavor of my answers was pretty simple: the rep was ok, but the answer of “we’re still working on it” was not. I got an email last Friday from a customer care person at Nokia who expressed his deep regrets for how the issue was handled and offered an explanation.

In short, the rep was not trained properly on how to deal with my situation. It should have been an easy matter of reissuing the download. We coordinated a time where an SMS could be sent to my phone so I could download the software–there is apparently a two hour timelimit on the validity of said SMS. I had my SIM card in my Nokia E71 ready to receive the message.

Sure enough, I received an SMS around the appointed time with a direct download to JoikuSpot, which is the app I purchased. I saved a copy of the app prior to the app installing (thanks, X-Plore) so I don’t have to go through this again (hopefully).

The main problem in Ovi Store is that there is no way to redownload stuff you purchased. The rep I was exchanging messages with acknowledged that problem and said it was a high priority to address. I sympathize with his team since they are bearing the brunt of this heinous oversight in the design of the Ovi Store.

One unrelated observation: the Ovi Store seems to do one-click installs of software now. Not sure what magic they are doing, but when I downloaded something new from the Ovi Store, I did not have the usual 4-5 installation popups come up. The app just installed straight from Ovi Store. Nice.

So what did we learn from this experience?

• Nokia can reissue Ovi Store purchases if you reformat your phone if you contact Nokia Care.
• Fill out the customer service survey when the case closes. Nokia listens and acts on these things.
• Be nice to the reps. They are a victim of these bad decisions just like you are and are only trying to help.

Meanwhile, my Nokia E71 now has JoikuSpot once again–ready for when I need it. Meanwhile, my SIM is happily back in my iPhone.