Chinese startup OnePlus has gotten a bad rap for its customer support, which has long been slow and ineffective according to the many complaints that litter its official forums. But the company wants to change that.

In an effort to deliver the best customer support in the business, OnePlus has already begun making huge improvements, which include making its support team bigger than any other department in the company.

A year ago, shortly before OnePlus launched the One, its first smartphone, its customer support team was its smallest department. But as of today, it is the largest, and it’s open around the clock — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Support is available not only directly through the support links on the OnePlus website, but also through social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. What’s more, the agents managing those channels now get better training.

“Each new team member undergoes an intensive three-day training course, after which he/she is paired up with an experienced mentor to guide them through their first few weeks as a support agent,” OnePlus explains.

“All of our agents attend weekly workshops where they learn about upcoming products, new features, changes to policies, tech support, and how to perfect their own soft skills when interacting with you guys, our customers.”

All of this work is already paying off; data collected by OnePlus shows that its customer satisfaction rate has risen 20% since December. But it vows to continue improving until it reaches 100% satisfaction.

OnePlus has also made changes to its warranty and returns policy to give customers greater peace of mind. Its “no-questions-asked” return period has increased from 14 to 15 days, and the same one-year warranty that covers the One now extends to all official accessories, too.

OnePlus’ RMA (return merchandise authorization) process has been one of its biggest issues. If you browse the company’s forums, you’ll find old threads from users with all manner of hardware defects that they allegedly didn’t receiving proper support for.

But under the company’s new policy, more RMA requests are fulfilled every day, and its improved web platform enables support agents to answer queries and address problems faster than they could in the past.

“Our target is to shorten the turnaround time as much as possible and make sure you can have your repaired device back within 7 days,” OnePlus says.

The OnePlus One became an incredibly popular smartphone with a massive following in a very short space of time last year, and it can’t be easy for a small startup to serve so many customers so early on.

The important thing is that the company has recognized its weaknesses and make big changes to address them. Those planning to adopt the new OnePlus Two later this year, then, can expect much better service should they have any issues.

• SourceOnePlus