Dodge, Dip, Dive, Duck, and Dodge

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Dodge, Dip, Dive, Duck, and Dodge

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Steve Jones - Editor

Posted Wednesday, January 13, 2010 4:46 PM

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item Dodge, Dip, Dive, Duck, and Dodge

Post #847266

CirquedeSQLeil

Posted Wednesday, January 13, 2010 8:11 PM

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Nice editorial. And nice method of integrating it with your blog. Like I mentioned in your blog on it, I agree that there should be a certain level of customer satisfaction without needing special attention. If they cannot provide the basic level of warranty for their product - I would wash my hands clean of them too. It's not petty, just a matter of self-preservation BigGrin

Jason
I have given a name to my pain...

SQL RNNR

Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw
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Post #847309

Gift Peddie

Posted Wednesday, January 13, 2010 9:48 PM

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Steve,

You have run into a flaw in Toshiba bios relative to Windows 7 I am living with it and yes I called Toshiba did not get any decent help, if it is not bios then it may be related to the Toshiba utilities in the box. I also used Microsoft posted way to disable the hibernate because it is holding about 30gig of my hard drive nothing worked. Now the latest it hibernates randomly good to know I am not alone.

Kind regards,
Gift Peddie

Post #847325

ben.mcintyre

Posted Wednesday, January 13, 2010 10:06 PM

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Sad thing is, I have come to expect this kind of thing. It's a case of searching for the rare company that doesn't do it rather than avoiding ones who do.
I'm mainly speaking telcos here, but as the call centres move offshore, it's all going to go that way.

My mate used to work for a University that had a service-based contract with their IT provider, allowing for so many failures and then a penalty would be imposed. So he'd ring up with a fault and the reply would be a flat 'we can't see that from our end' denial, then 10 minutes later the problem would magically fix itself, so that it couldn't be counted as an instance of failure.
Providing the absolute minumum service and still meeting contractual requirements (where monitoring even exists) is and has been a major focus area for some time.

Anyway (back slightly On Topic), I own a Macbook which runs Windows either virtually from OsX or natively by dual booting. Crazy to go any other way, I tell you. You'd never go back.

Ben

Post #847329

foxxo

Posted Thursday, January 14, 2010 12:51 AM

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It's almost a complete cultural shift in the way support is handled these days. "Service" is no longer king and cost-cutting / price takes precedence. Think of the airlines that now charge for baggage, water, not booking online.. telcos will charge you for calling them, changing address, using credit card - its rediculous that we've all accepted that basic service now comes at a premium or not at all.
I guess from a business perspective, once your competitor offers better prices than you, competing on service is almost a moot point.

Post #847379

drowlfs

Posted Thursday, January 14, 2010 1:28 AM

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I loved your entry today, it summarises my feelings about a lot of companies today - and getting dropped instead of being transferred seems to happen a lot more than in any company I've ever worked for (anything higher than 0!).

I think you're right to write it - single Toshiba out and make them really embarrassed, although we all know many other companies do the same. We can only tackle them one at a time.

And to the other poster about faults that are denied and then fixed, I absolutely and completely sympathise with you on that point. I used to experience that same thing even within the same organisation. Luckily they made me redundant for making too much noise about it :)

Now I'm free to find a company that actually cares.

Post #847383

S Hodkinson

Posted Thursday, January 14, 2010 2:06 AM

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Don't you just love Customer Care?

I am the Customer and you don't Care

Madame Artois

Post #847392

Fozzie

Posted Thursday, January 14, 2010 2:51 AM

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I know one thing, I'd hate to work in a call centre... even if you wanted to help the company may not allow you to either through rubbish systems or just lack of care... guess many times stuck between a rock and a rottweiler...

My ISP got bought out by another recently, on hearing the news I called up the new company and cancelled my contract. They didn't have much to say when I gave the response to the reason why "I don't like how your company operates."...

Normally things move in circles... we'll hit the absolute bottom, then some bright spark will think ah service... that's what we can offer over our competitors... then that's when people will be able to move to an alternative.

I am a PC man, by see the advantages of moving to MAC's...

Post #847397

Richard Gardner-291039

Posted Thursday, January 14, 2010 3:03 AM

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It doesn't make any sense to me at all - I don't mind speaking to some Indian guy (allegedly called Dave) reading off a script in the first instance - sure, cut your customer care costs by all means, but invest in a core infrastructure for escalation to people who can make actual decisions, make sure you can always pass a call through or have a reliable same hour call back method, and you have my business for life.

I've never really understood in what way this is difficult. HP do it reasonably well.

I do have a mate who works for a third party laptop repair shop - apparently Toshibas do have excellent build quality (failure rate of about a third of other brands), but of course there are always the "lemon" models, and there are certain elements of their software I have issues with.

Post #847402

freyes

Posted Thursday, January 14, 2010 3:05 AM

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Actually the big companies use the same strategies to avoid responsabilities with the failure of products.

1- If the product fail in Warranty, they change for a new one, the time spend to find the failure and fix it is to expensive.
2- If the failure is out of warranty, the cost for fixing the problem it's so high that anyone wants to repair, it's better to buy a new one.
3- If the problem is a design problem, the company change you the product for a new one again and again until the Warranty expires.
4- Don't try to contact with some decision maker, it's imposible. If you are so furious that the following contacts are done by your lawyer, the company offers a compensation before you go to trials. The numbers are easy, for each customer decided to go to trials, you have more than 10000 that does nothing but cry.

And the bigest problem is that this strategy is adopted for all big companies.

The problem that you have with your Toshiba computer, i suffered with a BMW motorcycle and a Panasonic DVD and a ..........

Regards from Spain

Post #847404

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