Whatever Happened to True Customer Service?

Over the past two years in the Pro AV World, I have noticed that major electronics manufacturers have begun a new trend and a new approach to giving their clients (resellers) service: providing service when it's convenient for the manufacturer. On far too many occasions recently, I have reached out to our manufacturers to set-up return authorizations for bad equipment and warranty repairs or for simply some technical answers about their product. And what, to my surprise, has become the new method of manufacturers supporting their resellers? "We're sorry, but due to a high volume of calls no one is available to take your call at this time. Please leave a message at the tone and someone will be in touch with you just as soon as possible. Thank you for choosing and have a great day."

Now, some manufacturers have had this process in play for quote some time and have made it fairly successful (Crestron). But these other manufacturers who did not always perform this way are not handling this approach correctly. Not only did I not receive phone calls back the same day, in most cases I did not receive any communication back at all! This is unprofessional and inexcusable.

One manufacturer waited 24 hours and then sent me an email (obviously taking the time to cross-reference my contact info in their database in order to get my email address). The email stated that they were, and I'm paraphrasing here, too busy for me.

One manufacturer's message actually said that they only way they will process a proper return is if we sent them a copy of the original invoice along with a written description of the problem via FAX. Are you kidding me? You're an electronics company and you only accept RA requests via FAX? Like I am going to trust that...

So what does all of this mean? Well, I am interpreting it as a problem industry-wide with having the proper staffing in the customer support departments of the manufacturers. It is also a problem with launching new products before they are completely tested and ready for the market in order to recover some research and development losses early.

But the effects reach farther than to just the resellers. They reach the end users. And who does this hurt? Everyone. The end user is angry because their product doesn't work when they need it to work. Nine times out of Ten, they're taking out that aggression on the reseller because that's who sold them the product. So, the reseller goes back to the manufacturer, but we're being hit with the circus-like process above, so the resolution takes much longer than is necessary and certainly longer than that of our clients' patience for waiting on a repair. If the process continues, then the reseller will look for another manufacturer. That is when the manufacturer will get hurt. It's just a shame that resellers in the AV industry bounce from one manufacturer to another all too frequently - so the manufacturer may never get the message.

Of course, the up side is that certain mega-manufacturers are taking a completely different approach - including extended service free of charge as incentives for customers, offering free advance replacements for any failures within the first year, second year or even the third year on the rare occasion without additional charge. These manufacturers are the Cities on the Hills, in my opinion, to the other manufacturers. This should be the end customer service goal for all electronics manufacturers. Of course, do you think it is a coincidence that these manufacturers also seem to be the ones with the product lines that have the fewest failures in the Pro AV world? Hmm...

Hopefully the trends started by the mega-manufacturers will have the effect needed among the smaller houses. Our customers need and expect their electronics to work. And when they don't work, they expect service turnaround as fast as possible. I'm not saying that we need to give them brand new equipment within 24 hours, but maybe the manufacturers should consider adding to their customer support and technical support staff so that repairs only take 1 week for the client (from time of reporting the problem to the problem resolution) instead of the average 2 weeks we're seeing with our manufacturers. There's your finish line and I so challenge you.