message to Sager
FYI, I sent the following message to Sager with PC Torque CCed today. I encourage other people who share my sentiment to send similar messages to them. After all, its our responsibility as customers to provide Sager with reasonable feedback in order for them to act on the artifacting issue we are experiecing:
Attn: Customer Service/Sales Department
Sager Notebook Computer Company
18005 Cortney Court,
City of Industry, CA 91748
To Whom It May Concern:
I am one of many consumers who have been impressed with Sager's track
record and customer feedback, eventually resulting in the purchase of a
Sager 8790 machine.
However, in the past month, I have experienced, as have a considerable
number of other customers in the recent past (please refer to the
following link:
http://notebookforums.com/showthread...0&page=1&pp=15), the
so-called "artifacting problem" which seems to stem from a design
issue rather than normal "wear and tear" due to reasonable prolonged
product use (given that the model is just barely a year old and people
have reported experiencing this around 4-8 months after making their
purchase).
The only solution that has been presented thus far has been to send
the unit back for a motherboard replacement and to cross one's fingers
that the problem doesn't recur. In fact, my unit is currently being
serviced and I expect to have it back sometime next week after losing
it for over two weeks. And judging from other customers' experiences
and the feedback from Sager technical support ("we don't know why the
graphics card conks out, all we can do is replace your motherboard
with a same exact one"), there exists reasonable concern among us
customers that the problem will probably recur.
In other words, from the customer's point of view, regardless of the
steps we follow to take care of our investment, there is nothing we
can do to prevent the graphics card from conking out on us again, and
eventually lose another 2+ weeks of productivity (not all of us
invested in this unit simply to play games; for some, our livelihood
depends on the performance of this machine). To make matters worse,
there are a lot of customers whose units' warranties are ending soon,
leaving many exposed to the risk of possibly spending more money later
on each time the graphics card conks out. I understand that we can
extend our warranties another couple of years, but I do not believe we
should spend more to insure ourselves from a problem that does NOT
come from the normal wear and tear that warranties were meant to
cover. I believe this problem belongs more under the "defect" category
because it seems to originate from a design issue.
On behalf of other customers who are in the same predicament, I
request that Sager go the extra mile to address this issue better. My
suggestions: for starters, why not at the least provide free extended
warranties to 8790 owners who specifically experience this problem in
the future? Of course, in the long run, I hope that a permanent
solution is being worked out like a design fix (possible motherboard
replacement which addresses the graphics card conking out problem), or
if the problem is found to be unfixable, perhaps a trade-in option for
another comparable model (if not totally free, maybe an upgrade fee of
even a couple hundred dollars would be more acceptable than extending
the warranty for the same amount knowing that we could end up sending
it back and lose more time later on because the problem is likely to
recur).
Other great companies have taken similar efforts to ensure that
customers feel that their investments are being protected and thus
develop the trust to make repeat purchases and give good
recommendations to other potential consumers. I site an experience I
had with Palm in the past wherein I, among many others experienced a
recurring memory problem with one of their PDA models. Customers had
to send their PDAs back to Palm to have them reset numerous times.
Palm took the extra step to honor servicing PDAs experiencing this
problem for free (regardless if the units' warranty expirations were
well after the standard 1-year warranty; Palm never charged a cent and
even took care of shipping fees to and from their repair center each
time - mine was three years old the last time I had to send it back!).
Eventually, Palm came out with a more acceptable permanent fix by
providing everyone with a memory card which allowed customers to reset
the units themselves and avoid the hassle of losing the use of their
PDAs each time they sent them to the Palm repair center.
My point is, many successful and thriving companies such as Palm have
stepped up to the plate. I encourage Sager to do the same since I
know, as many people do, that customer satisfaction has always been
one of the top objectives of your company. Please give us, your
faithful customers an assurance that it will continue to be a top
priority, so we can continue to make future purchases from your
company as well as provide more recommendations to other consumers,
with peace of mind.
Thank you in advance for addressing this issue in the very near future.
