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:

(1) The prompt and impressive response from Taylor Guitars at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n12WFZq2__0.

(2) The fact that United Airlines only paid attention to this complaint once Dave Carroll’s video had been viewed over 150,000 times on YouTube – see Fox News report at http://www.youtube.com/watchv=QiH2hJHPQvk&feature=related.

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 customer service.

Alan

I feel compelled to tell the world about my experience, over the past nine months, for four main reasons:

1. So others can avoid the misery, frustration and expense that I’ve suffered at Sony’s hands;
2. So senior executives at Sony get the message that it ought to be unacceptable to lie, mislead or ignore customers in the way that Sony have treated me;
3. So senior executives at Sony will think twice, in future, before launching products with inadequate software development and testing beforehand; and
4. To provide a mechanism for others who have suffered at the hands of Sony Vaio to voice to their frustrations, with a view to encouraging Sony sit-up and take notice.

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