Comments on: Sony delivers the worst ROI yet! http://www.emergencemarketing.com/2007/05/11/sony-delivers-the-worst-roi-yet/ Thoughts on marketing, innovation, social networking, new products and the impact of technology on all those thingies Sun, 12 Oct 2008 08:48:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Dave http://www.emergencemarketing.com/2007/05/11/sony-delivers-the-worst-roi-yet/#comment-645 Dave Sun, 13 May 2007 10:28:49 +0000 http://emergencemarketing.com/?p=903#comment-645 I weep for Sony, for they were once undisputed lords of technology, but I have seen nothing but Sony horror stories left and right.

I weep for Sony, for they were once undisputed lords of technology, but I have seen nothing but Sony horror stories left and right.

]]> By: francois gossieaux http://www.emergencemarketing.com/2007/05/11/sony-delivers-the-worst-roi-yet/#comment-644 francois gossieaux Fri, 11 May 2007 22:07:45 +0000 http://emergencemarketing.com/?p=903#comment-644 [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]<br /><br /> The HP experience I <a href="http://www.emergencemarketing.com/archives/2007/05/when_you_get_a_low_roi_as.php" rel="nofollow">mentioned earlier</a> 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." <br /><br /> 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...)<br /><br /> 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...<br /><br /> 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... [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…

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