Xiaomi puts a stop to demo phone prankers

Recently, an incident that happened with a Xiaomi demonstration machine in an offline store drew attention: someone set a lock screen password on it, which affected the trial experience of other customers. On this matter, Xiaomi’s product manager Zhang Yu said that the company already started testing a new automatic restore function for demo machines.

This feature is expected to roll out to all demo devices by mid-February, ensuring that such disruptions are prevented in the future.

Enhancing the Trial Experience

Demo machines in offline stores are very important to demonstrate the features and performance of Xiaomi devices. However, some problems, such as setting up random passwords, have from time to time ruined the customer experience. In a proposed enhancement, Xiaomi’s new automatic restore function will reset the settings of every demo machine to their default state after each use. This will protect the devices from malicious changes and ensure all customers have a consistent, hassle-free trial experience.

Xiaomi’s Expansive Retail Presence

Statistics provided by Alipay in October 2023 suggest that Xiaomi maintains upwards of 4,000 retail stores. An update to an auto-restore feature at this reach will go a long way in remarkably improving the retail experience: any customer who walks into a Xiaomi store is surely going to get fully functional demo devices down the line and with no hassle. It just goes on to show more about the brand maintaining quality and customer satisfaction.

Mid-February Upgrade Timeline

Zhang Yu confirmed this function is on internal testing and the deployment of such a feature can only happen until February 2025. With the official roll-out of an upgrade, this will fall within all the demo models in order to enforce the offline store experience of the reliability of Xiaomi.

By building in an auto-restore feature for its demo machines, Xiaomi is very serious and proactive about the concerns of its customers. This upgrade will ensure that the devices kept in offline stores are non-hackable, functioning, and easy to use, hence strengthening the brand image of Xiaomi in innovation and customer-centricity in solutions.