Sony delivers the worst ROI yet!
[rant coming] OK, so I am in a complaining mood this week, but as a passionate marketing person it is so depressing to see how large companies deal with their customers. My last mind-bending experience is with Sony.
I bought a Viao laptop from their online store last week and picked a model/color that was in stock and that was going to ship this past Tuesday - May 8th. I even paid for the 2 day shipping upgrade as I wanted it for the weekend. On May 8 I went online to check on my order and their system now showed that my order was now not scheduled to ship until May 9th. So on May 9th I went and checked and the system showed that my brand new toy would ship that day. When I checked on May 10th I was shocked to find the system now yelling at me: “CURRENTLY OUT OF STOCK, ship date unknown”. Never did I receive a notice from Sony explaining what was happening. The only thing I got from them was a useless dock that I had ordered with the PC. So I emailed them to complain about my 2 day shipping surcharge which was now meaningless and also to ask them for clarification on what was going to happen and how I could potentially cancel my order and return the dock.
36 hours later, the system is still yelling: “CURRENTLY OUT OF STOCK, Ship date unknown” and I still have to receive my first email or phone call from Sony. What did I do wrong?
Companies operating in the consumer electronics space have to know that as long as they do not screw up, people will continue to buy their brands when it’s time for an upgrade. That is true for PC’s, printers, cameras, you name it - heck - I bought 7 Dells before they screwed up. So how can a company, who is currently not doing that well to begin with, first screw up on their supply chain management so than a product that showed in stock suddenly goes out of stock with an unknown ship date, and secondly screw up even more by not communicating with a customer who not only paid extra for expedited shipping, but who also took the time to alert them about the fact that he was becoming irate? And did I mention that I usually buy top of the line, or should I say with tons of options that you don’t really need - so over a lifetime this could mean tens of thousands of dollars to Sony just from this one customer - me.
These are the basics…this is not sophisticated management theory:
a) make sure you have a reliable supply chain
b) have an impeccable customer service process - especially when a) fails
My Return on Information with Sony is close to zero…
sigh…
[end of rant]
[Tags: customer service supply chain sony viao roi return on information]
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May 11th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
[update] I cancelled my order and ordered a laptop from Lenovo…after all I had been recommending them to others for awhile. Hopefully that “buying” experience will be a delightful one…[/update]
The HP experience I mentioned earlier this week is going down the tubes. Since I got my new Media Center on Tuesday, I have not been able to get sound out of it. I tried on my own for two days before contacting their service department - where I now spent a lovely 2-3 hours (they had me open up the computer, re-seat boards, re-load drivers, and change the BIOS).
One tech told me that somehow the system was not seeing the Soundblaster card, which HAD shipped with the system, except that when I reseated the boards I saw no such card in there…Bottom line is that they cannot find the problem and that they want me to return the PC for a “factory check”, even though I paid for the 3 year HP house call extended service plan - which promises: “With the HP Total Care Extended Service Plan with House Call, you can chat online with an HP technician or let them walk you through a repair by phone. If you still need help, an HP-certified technician will come to your home or office to repair your PC.”
When I brought this up with the tech rep, she said that was only for hardware problems…(not sure how she concluded that my problem was not a hardware problem…)
Oh…I forgot to mention that when I tried to register my house call extended plan online it first did not accept the HP product number which was printed on their invoice as well as the label at the bottom of my PC. When I took one of their recommended product numbers, it told me that it did not recognize my serial number and therefore could not register my product…
It is companies like that which are commoditizing their own markets - if there is no customer service, even after paying hundreds of dollars for it, then customers will start looking for the cheapest solution with a “dump it if it breaks” mentality.
Come to think about it, some of those vendors may actually like that
Arrrgggghhhh…that means that we the consumers are the stupid ones…
May 13th, 2007 at 10:28 am
I weep for Sony, for they were once undisputed lords of technology, but I have seen nothing but Sony horror stories left and right.