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Sony - another ranting about service

post #1 of 16
2/4/10 at 3:57am
Thread Starter 
As I said Sony is one of the top eletronic company's, They are on top of the game!! Sony is only a problem when you need a repair for one of their products and have to deal with their support staff. Then the fun begins
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post #2 of 16
2/4/10 at 5:08am
Actually if the warranty is good, most of the time they would not ask too many questions. Support everywhere looks at first if the calling-in customer still has her/his warranty or not. Sad, but that's the way they function.

Another thing is that you don't call in if you have changed and tweaked your systems. They don't get paid to fix someone else software issue

cheers ...
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post #3 of 16
2/5/10 at 1:18am
Thread Starter 
One of my past jobs was, to help people with warranty service. I can say that every manufacturing company had good service reps and every one had poor reps. Sony was about 20% great, 60% average and about 20% poor.
Of Sony's 20% poor they were some of the worst I had to deal with. And yes I did make sure the customer did not create his or her own problem (for those people I would go through their system and show them what not to do again).

PS. you have got to love Sony's instructions. In BOLD type the instructions would read "DO NOT TAKE THIS PRODUCT BACK TO THE RETAILER". Many times the first words out of a reps mouth, on a drawn out problem was "take this product back to the store where you purchased it".

How many out there have had problems like this with ANY company?
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post #4 of 16
2/5/10 at 3:21am
Jessie good info! What is your take on it?

Regardless of what qhn thinks here is my scoop. Sony makes bitchin small form factor notebooks. They do cost like they think they are Apple. Buy the way only Asus and DeLL try and compete in that market. Sony is in the middle in the past but their builds are very nice!

Anything above a 14" might as well get an Acer. Sorry qhn. Maybe I don't know this brand? I can get a 15.4" for $600 at BB how good is it going to be? Like an Acer but not as good? Let the Big Dogs fight for the bottom end.

"What is the" difference between a Sony and a iMac"? The iMac thinks it is a Sony?

Real funny until you consider what is the difference between "God" and Bono? "God" does not think he is Bono! Get it? Ha Ha!
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post #5 of 16
2/5/10 at 4:35am
Thread Starter 
Powerpack; I love your comment!!!!!
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post #6 of 16
2/5/10 at 5:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by powerpack View Post
...
Regardless of what qhn thinks here is my scoop. Sony makes bitchin small form factor notebooks. They do cost like they think they are Apple. Buy the way only Asus and DeLL try and compete in that market. Sony is in the middle in the past but their builds are very nice!

Anything above a 14" might as well get an Acer. Sorry qhn. ...
Nothing is wrong with the statement, I personally feel the same. That Sony is good with small form and stylish notebooks - I personally own and use a few 13-14" Sony myself.

Quote:
Originally Posted by powerpack View Post
"What is the" difference between a Sony and a iMac"? The iMac thinks it is a Sony?..
Why peoples who never own a Sony or an Apple always think that Sony is trying to be like Apple? (or vice versa?)

cheers ...
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post #7 of 16
2/5/10 at 5:07am
Moving some posts to Sony Section. Peoples - try stay on topic next time around, would ya?

cheers ...
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post #8 of 16
2/6/10 at 6:00pm
Thread Starter 
Sorry about the brand switch. My point was to stress the importance of good coustomer service (no mater what company). MarkGee was unlucky in having to deal with one of the bottem feeders from Toshiba (again as every company has these people).

I was just saying, in my personal opinion, that some of the worst (the bad 20%) coustomer support people I had to deal, came from Sony.

This may be a question for another post but here goes. I would like to see other peoples opinion on good and bad customer service? Is there one brand that stands out as a company, that goes out of it's way, to help it's customers? On the other hand are there other companys that you feel falls into the "buy at your own risk" dept.?
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post #9 of 16
2/7/10 at 6:57pm
Yep - Fujitsu Siemens' support isn't brilliant at all either... I think though that the aim should be to buy from a brand and a model where it is most unlikely to need service afterwords!

In this manner as a "wannabe" Sony owner (maybe some day soon), I really hope Sony's business line is one of those quality things...

All I mean is that buying a Gericom, Targa, Fujitsu-Siemens is nothing else as dialing the prefix to their support the moment you take your new laptop out of the store.

So I would rather buy a more reliable brand with worse support then the opposite At the end of the road everyone of us is buying those machines hoping to use them without any issues ever and not hoping to meet the most friendly and helping technical support guys every time the laptop breaks down
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post #10 of 16
2/8/10 at 2:41am
Thread Starter 
You are correct. I think we all try to pick a company and product that will never need service. We look at how many computers are sold and the number that need repair (ether hardware failures or software glitches) and make our selection from that.

After we have done our homework, we lay our money down on the computer of our needs or desire. What comes next is very important, at least to me. Heaven forbid our new computer breaks down shortly after receiving it. OK we were one of the unlucky ones!! We call the service dept of that company, try to explain our problem and get the computer working again.

If we get one of the good repair people (one that works with you). You may still be upset that your computer stopped working, but you have some confidence that you computer will be fixed properly.

But if you get one of the bad repair people (jerks). You come away with a bad feeling about your purchase, as well as the company that manufactured your computer. You are never sure if you will trust your computer or that company again.

Again I say "anything made by man can and will fail".

I would like to here about company's that have gone out of there way to help customers with their problems. I think those companies are the ones that deserve our consideration when we buying laptops, or desktops.
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post #11 of 16
2/8/10 at 7:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JessieJames58 View Post

I would like to here about company's that have gone out of there way to help customers with their problems. I think those companies are the ones that deserve our consideration when we buying laptops, or desktops.
Going out of the way to help customers without asking questions would be against any company's policy, taking into account that 80% of all defects are to be found in front of the PC...!

And even then - everythink has it's price - almost every company offers premium/extended service support, including even accident-insurance! You want it - you pay for it!

What you get as a package is all a matter of money! And because as you say nothing is perfect - I would much rather invest say 1000 euro in a machine which does in fact cost 900 and just 100 go as a service add on, then for one that costs 300 and has the best and most reliable service support in the world!

With other words - I prefer going for service once by the worst support ever, then 5 times by the best one!

And to show what I mean with colors and facts, here are some statistics.

The one below shows how satisfied are people from ther notebook manufacturer's service:



Yes, you are quite right - Sony is in the second half indeed! Only 57% of all asked remained satisfied, whereas 38% were unhappy, which puts Sony in the second half.

But as 1 time is no time, let's see how many repairs were needed to fix 1 defect by the different brands:



Now we see that in 77% of the times, Sony managed to fix a problem from the first time, which puts them on 3rd Place in the rang list! And this is what I am talking about!

Take Dell if you wish ---> 1st place in satisfied customers after a repair.... but what comes next? in 11% of all cases a third or even further repair had to be done.

And let them buy you coffee and welcome you wit a smile every time you go there if this is what you wish for...!
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post #12 of 16
2/9/10 at 4:51am
Thread Starter 
I agree with you on, any repair should only need to be done once! I could think of nothing more frustrating than to have to send ANYTHING in for repair more than once (for the same thing of course). I should have put that in my last message but I thought I was getting to long winded. Also I would like to thank you for the graphs, In part that is what I was looking for.

I know that customer support, repairs, and usually 5% overhead for unexpected costs, are part of the built in price for any computer (of course that dose not include the profit margin the company wishes to make).

I believe your choice of a Sony computer is a sound choice, They make very state of the art electronic equipment, at a reasonable price. Plus Sony has a reputation of making computers (and electronics) that last for a long time.

I guess what I was trying to get at, is we all have read time and time again about bad experiences with computer company's. I would like to read about some of the good, unexpected experiences people have had.
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post #13 of 16
2/9/10 at 5:11am
I see your point. To be honest with you from what I've read and heard, the top 3 brands in terms of service and support are really Lenovo, Dell and Apple probably in this same order. The thing is though, that looking at the prices especially of a Lenovo, you pretty much pay a good price for this by the purchase already....

I don't know how your German is, otherwise I could send you a 9 pages pdf review and statistics specifically for the service and support of all notebook brands. The above graphs came from there.

Cheers
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post #14 of 16
2/9/10 at 9:12pm
Thread Starter 
My German is very poor. And I thank you for the offer. From everything I have heard Lenovo does make a first rate computer and has a very good reputation with it's customers.

What many people do not know is that customer support group and the people who repair the hardware, are two different divisions of the same company. Most of the time they do not even talk to each other (this applies to the larger company's).

The customer support that you talk with on the phone may have some software back round (many times they type the problem into a computer that they are in front of and tell you to do this or that and see what happens).

These are the people that show you the heart and sole of the company as seen by the you and me. If you are treated with respect and they try very hard to help you. You come away with a good impression of the company (and it's people).

But if you are treated with disrespect or like you are taking up too much of their time. You will never want to do business with them again. And remember most company's want you to come back again and again.

Then you have the second part which is the repair of you computer (or anything else). The repair people need to be motivated to do a good job on your equipment. And yes I mean to take the time to do it right the first time. Everything should be tested before being sent back to the customer.

Many years ago I used to manage an electronics company (World Engines) where we designed and built digital equipment. So I have a little knowledge of what should be done to make things right for the customer.

And the customer is all important to the company's out there. "no more customers, no more business= no more company"
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post #15 of 16
2/9/10 at 10:00pm
That's absolutely right! Couldn't agree more.

The only thing I would add is that it is more often the company's policy that make us wish we never bought certain brand. It is unfortunately and funnily the management that in order to save costs, insists that only really obvious defects should be repaired and as fast and cheap as possible.

I by coincidence had the opportunity to visit the main Fujitsu-Siemens' servicing and assembling warehouse in Germany. It was about an year after I had bought my Fujitsu Siemens laptop and still had a good opinion about the company.

To be honest with you, except for the slightly (in my opinion) understaffed service team, all seemed to work very professionally and quite motivated. The atmosphere and environment were clean and really leaving good impressions. Nevertheless... just a month later I had to fight with the hot line support to repair my laptop (under warranty). The plastic case had cracked on multiple places around the hinges.... and according to the Tech-support who did have a look at it and returned it to me unrepaired after 3 weeks - those were ""cosmetic" damages, due to incorrect usage"
I asked myself how incorrectly should I have been opening the LID of my laptop for it all to crack and this just 7 months after I bought it and how many ways there are to open a LID at all ?!
After arguing with a managing director I was forwarded to and sending her additional pictures of the laptop with a long complaint, she agreed as she said "as an exception" to repair it.
Had to wait another 3 weeks to get it back... and I don't need to mention that it cracked half an year later again, luckily not so badly.

Now this is what I really call a disaster company - trashy products in combination with unbelievable technical support!!!!
I really hope Sony are at least a bit better!?
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post #16 of 16
2/10/10 at 2:46am
Thread Starter 
First I think Sony does a very good job of designing their products. Plus, for the most part they have a good repair dept. I think you will be happy with your selection.

Also you have made my point for me. You were treated with disrespect by the support staff, and made angry and belittled by the people you had to deal with. And as you said would no longer purchase their products. So first thing, Fujitsu Siemens will not get a repeat customer (you). And others that you talk to, will also here about the way you were treated and probably think twice before purchasing a computer from Fujitsu Siemens.

In this day of worldwide shrinking money. Customer loyalty will play a big part of how well a company succeeds or if they go out of business.

I have not seen a Fujitsu Siemens laptop. But it sounds like they did not use enough polymers in their plastic injection process. That is why the plastic would become brittle and show stress cracks around the hinge aria.

Good luck!!!!!
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