ALL who have dealt with Sony Service: Vote NOW!

Okay everyone,

First off, thanks as always for participating in my inane polls!

To all who have dealt with Sony Vaio service, now's the time to vote for the circumstances and your response to the incident. This should provide some semblance of a balanced statistical perspective from the forum users here regarding Sony service, and, perhaps more importantly, whether or not ADH has anything to do with its quality.

I have included eight options to cover (hopefully) all of the possible variables involved in a Vaio repair. Please vote as accurately as possible, and include any details (if you like) via a reply in this thread.

Thanks as always!

-Steve

 

that's gonna be BS statistics: only advanced users hang out here, and of them, only some will vote - mostly those who had bad experience, the good ones less likely to bother reading/voting. Basically, results of the poll will be non-representative and biased, if you know statistics lingo, you know this is bad.

 

And if you know about more sophisticated statistics, you would know there is a concept called "casual empiricism" which acknowledges that the observations were not capable of strict statistical analysis but yet are nevertheless informative.

A large number of positives or negatives in a poll would be suggestive -- even if it is not subject to the most rigorous statistical analysis.

It's why we come here to make inquiries, why people read posts on Amazon and Newegg -- one can gather a lot of insight from data that technically is not subject to strict statistical scrutiny.

If people didn't find these polls -- which are put up all the time -- useful, they wouldn't bother to respond themselves.

 

All true, but if you read the OP, it states that the purpose of this thread is NOT casual empiricism but rather balanced statistical perspective. I can't fathom how can you pass one for the other.

Futhermore, it's always a good idea to take user reviews with a pound of salt for the reason I've indicated - they are posted mostly by those who are displeased with the product and much less so by those who have no issues. That is why no one in their right mind considers Newegg and Amazon posts a fair and objective measure of product's quality. It is indicative, yes, but by no means a 100% correct measure.

 

Obviously those who post here are not representative of the whole of the market. Nevertheless, it isn't as if these stats are going to be published in a Journal of Technology or something. I'm curious what others like myself have experienced on the whole.

There's probably been a poll like this before, but I searched and really couldn't find one as cut and dry as this. I hope some people decide to participate to give me some idea of what to expect should the worst come to be after I purchase a Z (assuming I do). Surely others would like the same assurance!

 

Precisely!

I got my Z a couple of months ago -- and I have had absolutely nothing but terrible experience with SONY customer support. I read nothing but terrible reviews of other people's experiences as well.

So far I absolutely love my Z -- and what I've needed customer support for was purely software related. Ironically, as I kept calling back for a particular issue, *every* SONY tech person said the previous tech person was completely wrong. I troubleshot the problem myself, taking bits & pieces of various techs' advice. There was one who seemed to really know what was going on. But as he was one of the first -- I did not think to catch his name.

So that was 1 in 7 techs. pretty low success rate.

Given everything else I have read I pr*y to G*d that nothing hardware goes wrong. People with maxed out warranties still seem to wait weeks if not months to get their laptop back from repairs.

I am in the market now for a very high end 15.4" and a 17"+ laptop. I have decided to go with HP for those because HP makes one in each size -- though heavy -- that are supposed to have incredible screens.

If SONY didn't make such outstanding products -- there is no way they would stay in business given their customer support.

Hopefully another manufacturer will come along to equal SONY's quality and provide good tech support. That will be the end of SONY at least in the laptop area.

 

I had an OK experience so i cannot vote in this poll. Service took too long but i could have billed for it but they did the repair for me and i sent in my laptop with several obvious ugrades.

 

Surely someone at Sony North America must recognize this fact?

Also, Rachel, thank you for your input, however uncategorized!

 

I sent my CW in by mail and had a good experience. From phone to actual product service, I can say that I've had MUCH worse from Viliv and Dell. Turnaround time was also decent. It took about a week and a half to get the repaired product back. Reason for service: Backlight failure.

Apple has been the only one that has impressed me every single time. From the time I call in for service (which is American, and quite friendly), to the time the repaired product is back to me, is under 5 business days. That's with White Glove service and no AppleCare.

Viliv is HORRIBLE. They practically have no phone presence, and it took about 3 weeks to get my device fixed.

 

Apart from the unmentionably obvious language barrier, Dell has actually always done a pretty good job for me when I need something. Perhaps it's my approach or my tone as a technician that convinces them to work with me without much argument, but I have never really had an issue.

HP really pissed me off last time I was dealing with them on a customer's behalf as they refused to send a replacement 1GB DDR2 RAM stick without the exact product and model number from the failed stick (which I didn't have handy at the time of the call). I almost threatened to make them take the entire laptop back in exchange for a Dell for the customer instead, but before long a supervisor apologized and did the job properly.

But this stuff I am hearing (from nearly everyone it seems!) about Sony support is just really frightening me. The Z isn't exactly a serviceable machine, what with its proprietary parts (SSD especially) and tiny form factor. I forfeited a pretty good deal on an outlet Z the other day (which I posted about) almost exclusively because the concern about support got to me. I have a feeling I'll end up with one of those failing screens with the dreaded lines or a bad SSD down the road, and I can't risk dealing with monkeys in Sony NA support. Are you listening, Sony?

As for turnaround time... geez, perhaps a week and a half is good by your book, but for me, it's ridiculous. In my experience, Dell typically has it done within a few days (3-5)! And the widespread reports of damage to the PCs post-service is simply inexcusable. I really wish they'd improve this.

 

What is ADH in this context?

Gary