Here was me thinking that it was only Sony Vaio users who were suffering the dead hand of Sony customer and technical service.
How wrong could I be?
Even a brief look at the two YouTube videos below will bring back bad memories and have you empathising with the pain of Sony PS3 customers.
Does anyone know how to reach out to the community of frustrated Sony PS3 users and invite them to join forces with us?
Bye for now,
Alan
When your Sony Vaio PC next comes back from Sony Customer Service in the same condition (or, perish the thought, in a worse condition) than when collected, supposedly to be ‘fixed’, here’s a radical new approach you may wish to consider.
The following article appeared in a Call Centre Focus newsletter in the UK on 18 March 2011.
A group of men smashed up a Lamborghini – with consent from its owner.
Businessman Han Nan allowed the men, dressed in blue boiler suits, to demolish the car because a dealership would not fix a fault.
He took it to the dealer in November to have an engine malfunction fixed. But it was returned still faulty and with a damaged bumper and chassis.
Crowds in Qingdao, China watched in shock as the £140,000 motor vehicle was reduced to a piece of twisted metal – see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jOuMbH3lDk.
Fed up with the poor customer service, he decided the only way to protest was to smash the car up – on World Consumer Rights Day.
The stunt comes on the back of folk singer Dave Carroll, who wrote a song about United Airlines and a broken guitar. The song chronicles his year-long attempt to win compensation from the airline [see next posting below].
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I’m now thinking that the last time Sony Customer Service lied to me about fixing my Sony Vaio SZ5, I should have taken it to the Reception area at Sony’s UK Headquarters, smashed it with a sledgehammer , and then posted the resulting video on YouTube.
Perhaps this might have captured Sony’s attention. Sadly, everything I tried came to naught, and I finally ended up with nothing more than a letter from their legal department.
Meanwhile, if you’re personally experiencing problems in dealing with Sony’s technical or customer service departments, please read my postings below.
At the very least, you’ll feel better from knowing that you’re not the only person in the world who has: (a) experienced outrageous service from Sony; and (b) been left feeling totally amazed that Sony’s attitude to customer service could conceivably be so shockingly reprehensible, or that Sony’s senior excecutives really don’t care and simply won’t reply to letters.
Perhaps between us, as fed-up owners of Sony Vaio PCs, we may eventually be able to make enough noise to cause Sony begin to pay attention.
For anyone who has ever experienced Sony Vaio’s exceptionally poor customer service, followed by a totally outrageous response from their mis-named “Customer Service” department, this recent YouTube video brings new hope.
It’s an amusing song, called “United Breaks Guitars”, outlining Dave Carroll’s experience of customer service at United Airlines. It can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo.
Once you’ve watched this video, you may also be interested in:
So, clearly we must all now hope that Dave Carroll will buy a Sony Vaio PC and then write a song about his experience.
Then, perhaps, Sony Vaio will recognise – and start to do something about – their truly appalling technical and customer service.
Alan
I purchased a top-of-the-range Sony SZ5 laptop PC on 29 August 2007, and have since been through purgatory, ending up in what I now recognise as Sony Vaio Hell.
I feel compelled to tell the world about my experience, over the past nine months, for four main reasons:
I have not had the benefit of even a single day of productive use of this Sony Vaio PC since I first pressed its power button on 31 August last year.
This PC has been back to Sony twice for inspection and repair, unsuccessfully in both cases. Indeed, I even had to threaten to report its loss to Lincolnshire Police in order to get Sony to return it to me again, so I can show the world what a supposedly “perfect” Sony Vaio PC looks like in reality.
Unfortunately, now I’m getting ahead of myself, and letting my sundry frustrations with Sony show, instead of telling you my story calmly, objectively and step-by-step.
First let me tell you a little bit about myelf, so you can see that I’m not some kind of nutter with a grudge against Sony.
As it happens, I’m an experienced management consultant with special expertise in helping organisations improve their customer experience. So I recognise both good and bad customer experience when I see it.
I have to say that dealing with Sony Vaio has been the very worst customer experience I have ever come across, either personally or professionally.
My intent, in creating this blog, is to provide a vehicle for people who have experienced appalling service from Sony Vaio, either in terms of products or services, to share their experience with the wider world, with a view to urging Sony to take product development and customer service more seriously.
My next posting will explain how the problems with my Sony SZ5 started.
Alan
I have experienced several problems with this PC – all of which still apply, and none of which have been properly addressed by Sony Vaio.
Let me briefly take you through these problems, so you can get a sense of how things developed. Subsequently, I will let you know how Sony responded along the way.
More news in due course.
Alan
Silly me . . . I thought Sony might actually want to help resolve my hardware problems.
Instead, Sony told me, not once but twice, to send my PC back to their offices in the UK for attention.
On each occasion, my PC came back to me in the same unworkable condition.
Frankly, I find it really depressing that Sony was not even willing to engage with me in a dialogue around the technical problems I was experiencing, let alone doing something to resolve them
Having sent two letters by registered post to Sony’s CEO in the UK, copied to the CEO of Sony Vaio in Europe, and yet having received no response from either CEO, I guess, like me, you might start to feel the same negative emotions towards Sony Vaio PCs.
If there is perhaps even one Sony Vaio user, somewhere across Europe, who has received a brilliant service experience from Sony when their PC went wrong, then it would be great to hear a contrary voice.
Meanwhile, I have to tell you that Sony Vaio provided me with the worst product and customer service experience I’ve ever experienced (and I’m over 60 years old).
Hopefully, my experience will help others who are thinking about buying a Sony Vaio PC to paus and re-consider their decision, lest they end-up having the same sort of experience as me.
Incidentally, if there’s anyone who would like to buy an unused Sony Vaio SZ5 with a three year onsite warranty, do please call me, as I’d be happy to sell my Sony PC.
Also, if case there’s anyone in Sony who wants to take me to court in response to this blog, I need to make clear that I have backup copies of all the emails and wav files necessary to defend myself in court.
Alan
