Bad Experience with Sony On-Site Support

The following is the current state of my log of what happened when Sony sent a tech on-site to replace a hinge on my Z11. I post it to give pause to those who (like I used to) considered bad experiences more of a fluke than they really are and to let everyone know what Sony will and will not do and what can happen. I don't assert that this will happen to you, only that it could. Something to keep in mind as you consider the actual experience value of Sony Service quality. My original calll was to have the right display hinge replaced as it was failing.

7/20 @ 9:12a – Chatted with Liz online. She referred me to https://eservice.sony.com to arrange on-site support. Indicated their process of contacting one group just to contact another was inconvenient. That website just provided me with a number to call for service as 888-476-6972. Liz, however, provided a different number (800-282-2848). She later indicated that the 888 number is a more direct line to schedule the service and that I should use that one.

10:16a – Spoke with Grace at 888 number above. She indicated she would schedule on-site repair of the hinge, but that if the problem is due to abuse or mishandling, that I would have to pay for the service. Provided me with Event ID: E46454068. She indicated that I should receive a call to schedule the on-site service within 3 business days. Set reminder to call in 4 business days in case I don’t get that call.​

7/22 @ 12p – Tech ( Randy) called to schedule hinge repair; set up for today before 3p, which I told him is when I have to leave for the day. His direct number is 802-683-5489.

2:10p – Tech showed up to fix hinge and completed repair at 3:10p.​

7/23 @ 9:14a – Noticed that the right of the plastic palmrest was scratched by the tech during his repair of the hinge. Called 888 number and spoke with Angel. Started out by complimenting Sony on the blisteringly FAST repair turnaround of only 2 business days, indicating that was something to brag about. Indicated to her that the right side of the palmrest was scratched during the repair yesterday. She put me on hold while she investigated possible resolutions. She created a new event to handle the replacement of the palmrest: E46537826.

7/26 @ 11:32a – Noticed that the noise cancellation function is no longer working since the last repair, causing a buzzing feedback whenever headphones are plugged in. Called above number and spoke with Joseph. He forced me through several steps of troubleshooting, duplicating my Realtek driver reinstall to original driver. Also tested with a standard headphone jack and the same feedback occurs after initially plugging headphones in (both right and left channels) – borrowed Vivek’s headphones to test another set. Joseph (Support) eventually admitted that an on-site service call is warranted/required to resolve the issue. Created another event: E46569090. These 2 most recent events will be handled separately, which, when completed will bring the number of repair visits up to 4: DVD drive, Hinge replace, palmrest, headphone jack.

7/28 @ 10:08a – Called priority support at 239-768-7605 and spoke with Elise. She indicated that the palmrest event id had been cancelled, but doesn’t list a reason why. I indicated to her that it should NOT be cancelled; I certainly did not request that it be cancelled. She placed me on hold at 10:15a to look into this. Came back at 10:17a and indicated that E46537826 was combined with E46569090 (and that is the reason it was cancelled). She indicated that the Service Technician will come prepared to resolve BOTH issues with one visit when he comes. Confirmed with her that I should receive a call from the tech either today or tomorrow to schedule that repair (based upon original call time of most the persisting event of Monday.

7/30 @ 11:22a – Called priority support again and spoke with Clare. She checked on the status of the Event. She indicated that there is a delay in supplying one of the parts needed for the repair and state that the record shows that the part will become available on Monday, August 2nd. She put in a request for someone to provide me with an update and to schedule the repair appointment. She said that I should receive a call within 24 business hours – today or Monday.

8/3 @ 8:05a – Called priority Vaio Support again and spoke with Mark. He indicated the part is available but had to put me back on hold in order to determine which part is on back order, the palmrest or the headphone jack. I stressed (repeatedly) to him that these 2 repairs used to be separate Event IDs that Sony merged into one, but that I didn’t want the crucial repair (headphone jack) to be held up by a cosmetic repair (palmrest). He came back to say that he couldn’t determine which part is on back order. I told him to re-separate problems back into 2 separate Event IDs. He attempted to passed me off to a supervisor, but they are not open until 9a, and Mark indicated that I will have to call back then. I hung up on Mark.

9:05a – Called, spoke briefly with Mark and immediately requested a supervisor. Spoke with the supervisor, Mel. I recounted the events and my request to re-separate the 2 Event IDs so that one repair doesn’t have to wait for the other. She tried to tell me that the part will be available tomorrow. I interrupted her to say that that is what Sony repeatedly told me for 3 weeks while I was trying to get the DVD drive replaced, that it’s not her fault, but “Your system lies to you and I’m not going to put up with it this time.” She put me on a silent hold for 15 minutes. She came back to say that they can’t separate them. She indicated that the part has been allocated to me that is supposed to be available tomorrow. I told her that basically I just wasted my time calling to speak with her only to learn that nothing is going to happen. I sarcastically thanked her and hung up on her.​

8/5 @ 8:23a – Called again (!!) and spoke with Angel. She indicated that the part is still not available, but that I would be contacted when it is. She apologized for the inconvenience and my experience. I told her that I was just looking for the truth and I’m not getting it. Mel indicated the part would become available yesterday but it did not. She indicated that her notes in the file do not indicate that she said that. I told Angel that she can type one thing into the file and say anything she wants to me over the phone. I told her that there is no point in talking to her and hung up.

8/6 @ 8:57a – Called and spoke with Joe. He reviewed the documentation on the case. Call was dropped. Had to call back and spoke with Mark. He put me on hold at 9:01a to investigate/research/check on the case. He came back at 9:04a and stated that a part is still on back order and the next update won’t be until Monday, 8/9. I indicated to him that the probable case is that the hardware for the headphone jack is probably NOT damaged and that it is just not connected properly. Suggested that they come out to reconnect the damn thing and thereby save Sony the money on the part and shipping charges, and keeping me from waiting 3 weeks for a part that probably isn’t even needed to resolve the issue. He offered to escalate the issue to the Supervisory department, but I indicated that I already spoke with them earlier this week and they are as impotent as he is. He placed me on hold again at 9:10a so that he could investigate what his other options are. He came back at 9:13a and indicated that his supervisor told him there’s nothing additional that he can do.

9:15a – Called National Customer Relations @ 800-430-4433. Spoke with Mel. Indicated that I just spoke with Mark and that I needed to talk to someone else. Spent a LOT of time explaining to her why they should come out without the headphone daughter card (including the fact that it probably isn’t damaged and that they are, in effect, ignoring my request for service by waiting all this time for a part that may or may not come in stock anytime soon). Indicated that this is not the first time I’ve been on this merry-go-round of torture with Sony; I went through the same exact process with the optical drive when I first received the laptop (including the frequent, “it’ll be available in 2 days” only to have 3 days go by with the part still on backorder). How does it make sense to spend $2,000 on a laptop that Sony doesn’t even stock parts for? It would be much better from a customer retention perspective to possibly come out twice than to completely postpone (ignore) ALL of my issues for weeks until a part that may or may not (probably not) be needed. She placed me on hold at 9:35a to “see what [she] can do for me.” Mel came back at 9:49a. She stated that they don’t normally come out to do a partial repair, but that she is still trying to arrange that for me. She’s going to call me back later today to provide me with an update on this. She confirmed my cell phone number, which was correct.
6:59p – Called Customer Relations again and spoke with Mel (claimed to be a different Mel). Gave her the Event ID and indicated that I did not receive the call back that I was promised to receive by the end of the day today. This Mel put me on hold at 7:03p to research what the other Mel requested. She came back at 7:07p to say that she spoke with Mel. She indicated that they can’t separate the 2 service requests and re-iterated that the audio daughter card is supposed to come off back order on the 12th. I spent a couple of minutes expressing my anger, swearing occasionally, at:

1. Sony’s inflexibility, demonstrating how little they value my business and how little they understand of customer retention
2. The fact that nobody does what they say they are going to. Most recently Mel didn’t call me back as promised. Why? Because she had bad news and she’s a chicken.
3. Sony’s inability to stock parts for repairs. This is the SECOND time that I’ve needed parts to complete a service and Sony didn’t have them in stock either time.
4. They wouldn’t do anything special for me even though it was THEIR technician who screwed up my laptop. The audio jack was working just fine before he touched it. Sony has no sense of accountability. The fact that THEY screwed up my laptop means nothing to them. Nothing at all.

Advised them that I’m never buying another Sony again. It simply isn’t worth the incredible frustration when (not if) I need service.
Mel then asked if there was anything else that I wanted to add to my complaint. I asked her if “that was a joke, because it isn’t funny.” She then thanked me for calling Sony, and I laughed at her and said, “Yeah, right!!”​

Personally, I doubt that I will ever again have enough confidence in Sony to buy from them again.

 

Wow.

I bought my laptop from Conics, I think if something goes wrong, I will mail it to Japan to get it fixed.

Unless it's equally bad over there (waiting for someone to confirm this in three, two, one...)

Did you try opening a case with BBB?

 

No, but that's a great idea. Doubt it will make much of a difference to them, but I've already wasted so much time with them, what's a little more time?

I'll do that right now.

 

SONY@BBB

BBB Review of Sony Computer Entertainment America in Foster City, CA

 

I thought Sony's F rating was just because it was too big, then I checked out Lenovo

BBB Review of Lenovo Group Limited in Research Triangle Park, NC

Lenovo got an A.

Sony's cases:
+ 506 Resolved
+ 205 Unresolved
+ 81 Administratively Closed
+ 83 No Response

Lenovo's cases:
+ 863 Resolved
+ 31 Administratively Closed
+ 1 Unresolved

 

this is why sometimes i'd have stuck with Dell. at least they are prompt and I only had 1 issue with a repair

 

What truly sucks about the whole thing is that the Z really has no peers...anywhere. If Dell made one, I'd buy it. If Lenovo made one I'd wait in line for 2 hours to get one. The problem is, nobody does what the Z does. If I want/need everything that the Z does in one package for the size, weight and performance that it offers, I have no choice. I'm forced to either settle for less or endure the possible service torture at the hands of a company that is 100% clueless about the importance/value of customer satisfaction and/or what to do to get it.

 

Your frustration is understandable. However, I'm a bit curious that you can remember (or keep straight) all the names of the Sony people you spoke to. The contacts always identify themselves with easy-to-pronounce one or two-syllable names, which may be more convenient than their real names, but I doubt Sony has only one person named "Joe," or if the next Sony person you call will know who was Joe, Mark, Angel, or Mel. If the plan to allow for positive designation of specific people, it would be better to invent unusual monikers: R2D2, Pepe le Peu, Bugsy, Ratzo, or perhaps Dumbo. Well, perhaps not Dumbo, since the Customer Service runaround can resemble a 12-car Dumbo Ride.

You may be right that some of your problems could be fixed without replacement parts, but simply reinstallation, but would it be cost effective to send the field person, only to find that in fact one or more parts are in fact needed? One reason for the slow parts deliveries may be that many lack generic equivalents or are no longer in production (as in the case of drives with older PATA interfaces). Neither Sony nor Sony Optiarc provide PATA blu-ray burners any more, so I had to find a replacement on EBay. Since I expect that source to vanish, and fear eventual failure of the replacement internal PATA burner, my other back-up is an external burner.

 

Call four for the second issue, you hung up on them. Call five you hung up on them. In my experience with C/S in general, (I have had no experience with sony C/S) you are going to be flagged internally as a problem child and nobody is really going to want to work with you again.

I'll agree the service you provided is/was poor. There's obviously a parts backorder, this happens...and they should've been able to communicate that to you early on, and effectively. But when you start telling people they are impotent and hanging up on them, you run a real risk of them no longer taking your business seriously.

In my business, when customers treat C/S poorly repetitively, we stop working with them and are willing to lose their business.

 

Why would someone want to call you back with bad news considering how you don't accept reality and keep badgering for something they cannot offer you.

 

As a point of clarification, I did speak words of departure - even if those words were "there's no point in talking to you; Goodbye." So, I didn't technically hang up on them, though it was indeed abrupt. I wish I was more saintly and didn't get as frustrated as I do with stupidity and inflexiblity, but my behavior is only half of the equation, and not the most significant half at that.

When your job is to provide service, and you can clearly see how your company is not providing good service (as any honest person could) - I used to be in service and there were a couple of times when I levelled with a customer and told him that I don't understand why "it has to be done this way" and that I wish I could do more for them - your job is to be professional no matter what. If I was your supervisor and you decided to stop helping someone because they became abrupt with you after getting frustrated with "our" level of service, I would call you into my office for disciplinary action; being willing to stop working with someone is nothing to brag about. Again, in service you're job is to be professional even if the guy on the other end isn't...which is why customer service/support requires an extraordinary sort of person...someone who can recognize that the customer's frustration has nothing to do with you personally, but is directed at the company.

 

Uh....how is wanting or not wanting to call someone back even relevant? When you work for the National Customer Relations department, it's your JOB to call back. No matter what. Period. End of story. There's simply no excuse. Call back apologetic saying, "I tried every way I could think of to get this to go through, but I couldn't get it approved." Expect yelling. Don't take it personally. Like the last person I spoke with did. She kept her cool. If you can't do that, you need to find another occupation.

Oh, and I especially like how you paint the picture of me spending over $2,000 on a laptop only to have 4 problems within 6 months - that can't be resolved in less than a month each - as me not accepting reality, and my calling them after the times when they promised to provide updates to me by as "badgering" them. I think I'll treasure that response forever.

 

Based on FrinkTL's posting history, I would say that he seems to be quite a reasonable and helpful person. I know that while two really nice people are unlikely to get into arguments, it is not impossible. I doubt that Frink is out to 'get' Sony, I think he is wary of Sony's support, and, as a service to this forum, meticulously recorded the dates, times and names of Sony support people he spoke with.

If the reader doesn't believe any of the above, check out the BBB scores I posted earlier. I mean, Sony got an F, the opposite end of the spectrum. They didn't even respond to a significant number of complaints filed. I also checked up on Apple (B), and Dell (B).

I would, in general, tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt (because I hope they would do so for me), but it's really kind of a stretch for Sony

 

They told you that they can only wait for the part and cannot just get someone to come in. You had them recheck this fact several times and demanded a speed of service they cannot offer within the confines of their company. The computer said it's available at X date, you claimed that wasn't the truth and demanded alternatives before that even became a fact.

The confines that Sony creates on the service are horrid, yes. Very horrid.

But you are also not a pleasant customer to deal with. No, nobody should have to deal with customers YELLING. How outrageous that you'd even think that should be normal. Yes, good CS reps can keep their cool and professionalism while being yelled and sworn at. That doesn't make the customer any less of a horrid person for yelling in the first place. Simple reality there.

It's your prerogative not to buy Sony, but it's certainly not your prerogative to yell at other human beings. Especially when you're just putting them between a rock and a hard place. I know how frustrating tech support and CS can be with companies, I once had to wait 2 weeks for a problem to be fixed simply because I was more technically knowledgeable than they wanted to give me credit. They chose to spend 2 weeks testing to make sure what I said was really the problem. It was. It was also a frustrating reality but not one which would have made it appropriate for me to yell or swear at them.

In the end, they're not getting paid to be yelled at. They're paid to represent a company and try to offer the services the company offers.

There's many times a tech might even want to just do something outside the rules of the jobs just to get a customer to stop being annoying and a pest. But they can't. And the customer isn't helping at all!

 

I would never claim that the fact that Sony doesn't have horrid support. Not for one second. Those numbers speak volume.

But tech support and CS reps cannot fix Sony's rules and constraints. And no amount of being sarcastic, yelling, mean, swearing or belligerent is going to change them either. To say that customers who keep calling hoping that ONE rep will say YES even though they've been clearly told over and over that the rules say NO... are annoying is an understatement.

That is one convoluted sentence . Back to English 12 for me!

 

LOL. ("12-car Dumbo Ride")
I keep detailed logs of all my support calls of any kind. Mostly in case they ask who I spoke with - which Sony never has - and to eliminate "hearsay" in my memory of the events.

IF they end up needing to come out again because a part does turn out to be required, I suppose it would cost them more. On the other hand, if not, I would have saved them the cost of the part as well as it's overnight shipping to me and that of the old part back to them. I was honestly trying to do 2 things with my request:

1. Restore important functionality quicker
2. Save them money by not replacing a part that probably isn't even damaged. (Saving them money in the long run should translate into saving me money.)

 

Oh but they can. I've gone through a similar horror story with Sony, and I completely agree that their method of business is inflexible and completely internal-centric rather than customer-centric.

There is absolutely no reason the OP should have had to go through the events that he did. They certainly need to streamline their processes, as they are bloated, bureaucratic webs. But can you imagine the impact it could have had if Sony had offered a free PS3 for the customer's trouble? Rather than posting in a forum about how he'll never buy Sony again (or calling them back fifty times), he might be talking about how this is the greatest computer company out there. Think he'd buy Sony again?

The point is, yes maybe they can't expedite the process in question, but they can disarm and regain the loyalty of customers by offering some kind of "wow" factor. It doesn't necessarily need to be a free product, but customers respond well to that. There is no empowerment of frontline staff at this company and there is no easy customer service interaction. Unfortunately I don't think it's only Sony either. I've said it before, I can't believe this industry hasn't matured more in the last ten years as we transition from the service to the experience economy. It's not just computers they are providing, or even customer service/technical support, but experiences. No one wants to do business with companies that offer bad experiences, even if they offer good products.

 

Yeah, JP$, agree with you 100%. But the fact is that it's not up to individual customer service reps to choose to do such things. Trust me, a rep would be happy to have such tools at their disposal to disarm the customer. Ecstatic even! Can you imagine a CS rep choosing to have the customer call in many times, more and more upset, or give them something in return for their pain?

I wish companies had more foresight in terms of long term effects of their approaches to... everything really. But instead it's all about quick and right now. More money on marketing, less money on CS.

You know that saying? If you have to brag that you are all about customer service, you're not really about customer service.

And my last point. Sony the company may be able to offer solutions and flexibility, John Doe the CS rep or even his manager can offer nothing outside what is prescribed.

 

Very true. And you do have a point in that getting frustrated (yelling even) at Sony frontline reps really doesn't do anything. But having been in the position, I can't help but sympathize with FrinkTL, and I think as a human being I would have reacted the same way. Actually, I kind of thought he was a bit restrained, considering his original post started out mundane enough and built ever steadily to the brutal climax.

 

On site repairmen for many companies are often contracted out. The contracted ones have no specific training for your model, they have simply passed some sort of hiring process, which from what I have seen, isn't very stringent. I have seen offers from warranty companies posting listings for these jobs on Craigslist.

Because of this, everything the "tech" does, costs Sony money. Sometimes LOTS of it and it is money they cannot control. They can however control parts, which are actually cheap. For a part Sony charges you $100 for, they pay closer to $10 or $20. The tech costs more than anything but the mainboard and possibly the CPU. So I can see why they don't want to send a tech to fix it.

The first time the tech came, Sony lost a good portion of their profit on your computer. The second time he comes they are likely already on the losing end, they don't want to lose any more.




This isn't to say that off-site repairs are much better and Sony does deserve that F rating by the BBB. Their support system is truly pathetic and they have really never spent any effort to improve it. I doubt they will any time soon. Until it starts costing them money they will continue to do this.


My advice to the OP, fix it yourself. Seriously.
On site seems like a deal, as does a nice warranty, but I have seen and heard too many complaints. Odds are the hinge could have been found for a few bucks on Ebay and fixed in a few hours. Instead, you are now going on how many weeks? And the repair now encompasses how many other parts? You shouldn't have to, but sometimes it's just easier and safer. The only time I would bother involving Sony is if it was a high dollar part. How much is your time and frustration worth. In the time you spent on the phone, you could have done the repair, the price of the part is easier than waiting weeks.

 

I'd agree, except that warranties are where Sony makes a lot of profit. Every warrantied machine that does not require a repair is pure profit. If warranty repairs were costing Sony, they wouldn't be offering them.

Fact is, as a paying customer, FrinkTL was sold a certain level of service and (imho) hasn't received it. His being upset is justified.

For those thinking FrinkTL isn't accepting reality, well the fact that he was promised certain things (that a part would arrive a certain day, that he'd receive a phone call) and Sony did not deliver on those promises, shows me that his being upset is a sign that he's accepting reality very well.

Bottom line, promises were broken, trust was lost, and so I can understand if FrinkTL is hard-pressed to believe Sony when they say "there's nothing we can do".

-Peter

 

As I experienced with many companies' service, it is all about selling stuff. A customer has to admit, they often give you great deals (see the multiple 15%+ discount threads in the sony forums) but lack of reacting fast and accurate when a customer complains about a faulty product or even about bad service. Even worse, I experienced mean service issues concerning manufacturers' warranty and warranty of title. If you as a customer insist upon your customer rights given by law they toy with you like sh**. Every department of big companies tell you "it is not our responsibility" and you have to force them to act in order to get yourself satisfied. IMO the bigger the companies, the more problems customers have with them.

Here in Europe, I have nearly the similar problem as the OP with sony (sony style). The fact is, that sony even doesn't react when you set a time limit to resolve issues. When you want to buy a product, they are really fast. As described above, they here also lack of flexibility; if you have e.g. bought a laptop with a defective battery, they told me that you cannot exchange the battery, you have to return the whole laptop and order a new one (CTO's take about 3-4 weeks to hit the customer). That is what I call an F.

100% aggree.

 

I don't know what the consumer rights are in the States, but something like that happens in Korea and to Samsung and you'll have street riots resulting in multiple casualties.

Back to Sony though; your machine is 4 months old; can't you just send the darn thing back and ask for a BRAND NEW replacement? It's under the 1 year warranty, it's not working as it should (more like, some who's supposed to have fixed it has made it worse). Well, either that or I would get around to fixing it myself, but I ain't too sure if Sony ships out just parts to customers like Dell and Lenovo...

And yes, Sony does contract out third party companies for their repairs (New Zealand here has joined this contracting-party too) so my suggestion is to new buyers is to stay away from the 3 year extended on-site stuff; just not worth the trouble and cash.

...I have suffered in the hands of Sony CS New Zealand myself. What was supposed to be simple DVD drive swap (that would take 5 days max, according to the person I was talking to face-to-face), turned into a 3 week nightmare. They insisted two more days, for two weeks. Apparently they just HAD to swap my motherboard for some bizzare reason, even though the issue was clearly the optics drive. Though I'm greatful the laptop came back without issues.
And.
A seperate job involving a LCD replacment earlier on in the year; my laptop back then came back with loose power caps, dents, and scratches on the keyboard. At least the above's recent repair visit actually was courteous enough to actually REPLACE the loose power cap for me (worth US$40)...

 

Drats, Sony hires some clueless repair people. Even I can manage an LCD replacement without scratching, denting or leaving anything loose. Extended warranty sounds like a waste of money indeed.

 

Yes, FinkTL was sold a level of service, their goal is to give as little for that money as they can. I also agree he is justified, but saying Sony makes money on warranty repairs is silly. They will make money selling that warranty but lose doing anything about it. The less work they do, the more profit they get from that warranty, and face it, stall tactics work.

For techs, the more you fix in less time the more you make. Plus, in many cases, if you have to go back, you get paid twice for the same job. Did the tech really cause the problem or is the customer full of it? Prove it. A level one tech support person looking at a screen and a checklist isn't going to question or over-rule what an on-site tech says. On site techs are un-supervised, what they say tends to go unless they get too many complaints.

 

Indeed, you can say that as long as you do not need expensive spare parts like a motherboard or lcd replacement.

 

Well...QualXServe (the local Sony-authorized service provider) showed up yesterday at 5p to do the repairs. It's actually quite funny, because according to Mel #2 the part wasn't scheduled to come off back order until today, and in order for the tech to have it already to come on-site, that means it became available the prior business day, or Monday, 8/9. They really have no apparent control/predictability over parts sourcing whatsoever - which is comical from a sufficient distance.

Anyway, back to the repair attempt...

The scratched palm rest: The replacement palm rest supplied by Sony was actually MORE scratched than the one I already have that the prior tech scratched. It had a long, deep scratch down one side. It had been packaged in that foam-like wrap companies tend to wrap flat panel TVs in, so it was properly packaged; it was just nasty to look at. He said that he would report back to them that the supplied part was defective/worse than the part it was intended to replace. Oh, and while I'm talking about the palm rest, let must note just how incredibly thin and fragile it is; it's not that much thicker that card stock (paper). I guess we'll see what Sony does about the tech's report; I won't pursue them on that one - maybe I already have the best one available?

Headphone Jack: Well, there's an interesting story here. You'll never guess how many times the tech had to disassemble and reassemble the laptop before he got it to work properly again after replacing the headphone jack daughter card. Go ahead, guess. 2? 3? Nope. 4 (four). Only with the fourth (4th) reassembly did everything work properly. Here's how the interim results of each reassembly went down:

1. Left mouse button pinned down; keyboard unresponsive
2. Touch pad not working
3. Laptop wouldn’t power on
4. Laptop finally worked properly

I have to tell you, it was a horrific process to watch. After attempt #3, I was starting to think about how long it would take me to restore changes since my last image backup done 3 days before. I mean, YIKES!

Anyway, this does prove other posters' notes about the experience/quality level (re)presented by the local service providers.

In Summary/Conclusion: The entire experience (as another poster aluded to) of my Z11 has been emotionally exhausting. From a non-functional DVD drive at initial receipt and having to wait a month for it to be in stock to be replaced, to a hinge (the replacement of which was really fast, but flawed), to tech-caused damage, to another 2 weeks waiting for another part to be in stock, to Sony supplying damaged parts (palm rest) for replacement, to watching a "tech" fumble his way through properly reassembling the notebook. Wow, I'm pooped. And very un-excited about ever calling Sony again - for anything.

 

I'm emotionally exhausted just reading this horror story. I know exactly what you mean about calling Sony. After my experience (which I think is definitely not as extensive as yours), I feel like I need some Jack Daniels just to work up the nerve to call them, because I know the combat that awaits. And that may be Sony's ultimate goal--sell you a product then encourage you never to call back again.

 

Sorry, I didn't write very clearly - when I said that "If warranty repairs were costing Sony, they wouldn't be offering them" I meant to say that if warranty repairs were making warranties non-profitable, they wouldn't be offering them.

Your point about Sony providing service as cheaply as possible sadly seems to be the case here. Not all companies are like this - some will sacrifice some profit to retain a customer.

-Peter

 

My recent experience with Sony's repair center is buried somewhere in the long-term SSD performance thread. I had 256g (128g x 2)

My SSD died after about 2months (not exactly long-term eh?). To keep it short I got it back with 60g, then back at the center they updated the bios to 120g and told me my Z11 NEVER came with 256g and call Sony. After 3people and 1hr tells me the repair center is at fault (he mentioned that I might have put in 120g and take out the 256g!!!!!). I call the repair center and get rather annoyed. I get a call back the next day that indeed my Z11 had 256G and the parts were on order. That was about 10days ago and I'm still waiting.

 

Agreed. If done right, profit sacrificed today is profit gained tomorrow. Retaining a customer for life can be extremely lucrative for a company, but retaining a customer means doing what's best for the customer. I suppose it's two different business mentalities. One stresses doing everything you can do to minimize costs and maximize revenue in the short term as the way to being profitable, even if that means losing customers along the way. The other stresses maximizing customer perception as the recipe for driving likelihood to repurchase and likelihood to recommend. I definitely prefer option 2. Option 1 seems archaic, but seems to be the model most computer production companies follow.

 

Oh, man! I feel your pain. Sony Support/Service has an amazing ability to take what should be a simple process and screw it up beyond recognition. I hope things turn around soon for you...

 

Wow, that's a bad one. Where would they even get a 60GB hard drive that fits in the Z11 form factor and uses that oddball connector is the amazing part to me. Also, when you say 120GB do you mean 128GB?

Hopefully, it was easy to prove to them that a 60GB drive that fits the Z is not something a normal consumer would be in a position to own, much less substitute. That combined with your receipt proving you bought a 256GB should pretty much cinch the deal.

 

I would say that when I bought my Z11 in March, it had no peer. However, since then the Toshiba R700 came out. It is just as light and fast. It has the fingerprint reader, motion eye camera, it weighs 3.2 pounds, you can get i3, i5, or i7 cpu, etc.

Downsides are: 1) It no GPU. and 2) screen resolution is 1366x768.

For many, the lack of GPU is not an issue (my Z pretty much stays in Stamina mode 99% of the time). The screen resolution is a definite drawback, but the price is QUITE a bit better.

So I would say overall, the R700 is a very worthy competitor to the Z.

 

I see where you're coming from, but I'm in the camp that the switchable graphics on the Z puts on a whole different plane than the R700. The lack of a discreet GPU on a computer is a big downside for me, since the most recent console I own is a Nintendo 64. (Well, I guess I have a Wii for my kids, but does that count for gaming...? )

 

Ditto that for me.

 

JP$, the Wii most certainly does not count for gaming!