Samsung is doubling down on its efforts to recall all Galaxy Note 7 devices. The company will install booths inside airports where users can surrender and exchange their Samsung Galaxy Note 7 device.
The special booths will make it easier for users to avoid violating a serious federal ban pre-flight. Samsung is calling these booths as "customer service points" and they will appear at airports in the United States, South Korea and Australia.
Samsung has recently decided to halt production of Galaxy Note 7 devices following numerous reports of the smartphone combusting randomly, often causing injuries for users who were carrying the device on their person at the time of the explosion.
Samsung attempted to undo the situation by administering a recall program that lets users trade their current Galaxy Note 7 devices for a replacement unit. The fiasco seemed to have been ironed out by the recall program, that is until replacement units were found to carry the same problems found in the original ones, overheating, battery-draining and still catching fire.
The U.S. Department of Transportation officially banned passengers from carrying the Galaxy Note 7 in U.S. airline flights mid-October, sending a very strong message that the devices were indeed a hazard and a detriment to safety.
As per Samsung's official notice there will be seven customer service points in Australia, open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time, except for Canberra, which will be open until 6 p.m. The exchange points will be located before security screening, and will offer users an alternative device as a replacement for the Galaxy Note 7. The company is working with officials to add more customer service points in additional airports.
A customer representative will assist all those who plan on exchanging their Galaxy Note 7 device, and they will get a replacement unit immediately on-site. Samsung didn't provide information regarding what the replacement phones would be, although it's likely that it'll be its other flagship device, the Galaxy S7 or S7 edge. The representatives will help the users transfer their data to the new replacement devices, and apply users' trade-in credit to their next billing.
The existence of these booths suggest that Samsung is intent on rounding up all Galaxy Note 7 devices still in circulation, which per app research company Apteligent's estimate could still be over a million worldwide, as of last week.
The company is currently muscling efforts to restore consumer loyalty to its own brand despite the serious effect of the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. Even with the Galaxy Note 7 officially pulled from life support, Samsung is still set to publicly disclose just what went wrong with the explosive units.
