Sony warranty experience: very positive

Before buying my Vaio F, I did a lot of research. I heard some people say that Sony has really bad customer service nowadays. Having had some first-hand experience with a warranty claim, I'd like to disagree with that conclusion.

Over the weekend, my Vaio F (roughly six months old) went nuts and announced "OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND" from an MS-DOS screen. I reformatted the hard drive, and it ran okay for two days, then did the same thing. So I called Sony.

First thing I noticed: no lengthy telephone tree, no "all of our operators are currently helping other customers." I had to select two or three options to let them know that this was (1) a repair call (2) about a Vaio (3) that was still under warranty, and then I was transferred to a live person. English was the person's first language, so there was no language barrier (and while they were clearly in India, their accent was not so thick that I had trouble understanding them). They were not tied to a script to the point where it interfered with me just explaining what the problem was.

I explained what happened, and she said "well, if you've already tried reformatting the drive and reinstalling Windows, it sounds like a hardware problem, so let's set up an on-site repair and replace your hard drive and RAM." Just like that. She seemed apologetic that it might be three to five business days before the on-site repair was ready, because they had to get the parts to the right people (to help clarify, I don't live in a major metro area). Frankly, I was expecting to be without the machine for weeks after shipping it to a depot, so this is great. I didn't even realize I had on-site repair...I'd just taken the basic minimum warranty that came with the machine.

I got a follow-up phone call an hour later. This person's accent was pretty thick, and I had some trouble understanding them at first, but besides that, it was a great call. They wanted to double-check that their records accurately reflected the size of my hard drive, rpm speed, and the amount of RAM I have, so that they wouldn't inadvertently install lesser equipment when they did the repair. I really appreciated them double-checking.

I don't have a concrete date yet for the on-site repair, but so far, so good. I'll keep this updated. This is really the sort of "premium" customer service experience that you don't often get in the modern electronics world.

 

That's nice! Although I also had very good warranty experience with them too. They replaced my fading palmrest, sent a person to me too (too bad I took too long to install a clear protector on it... so it's fading again, outta warranty). I think that's the experience you get if you buy their premium laptops (the on-site service).

 

Mitlov: did you just call the standard customer/technical support number? Had you ever called it before? What number did you use? Could someone at Sony have figured out that they may be out of business soon if they didn't fix customer support in a hurry?

 

Yes, I just called the standard tech support number. It was on the warranty paperwork that the machine came with; I don't have it with me right now. But it's not like I had already set up a claim number online before I called or anything; I just called the 1-800 number. (Or maybe it was 1-888 or something, but you get the idea).

 

Thanks for sharing. We don't hear about the positive experiences often enough in forums like this.

 

^What they said.

 

I think there's probably a reason for that.

I for one am once again dreaming about driving a dump truck full of manure and a large trebuchet to my local Sony HQ and using both. Few other companies can make warranty repair such an intensely rage-fying experience in my book.

You'd hope everyone has a basic obvious repair sorted out. Beyond that is when you really find out who does warranty properly.

 

This is not the first warranty claim I've ever had to file, and no, it's not always near this smooth, even with obvious problems. In the past, I've run into everything from 60-90 minutes on hold to "we won't replace ANYTHING unless we can get diagnostic software to identify the problem." I got neither here. THey were willing to replace components that probably cost 20% the price of the machine based simply on my reporting of symptoms. Hell, chkdsk said the HDD was fine, but they're still replacing it just to be safe (and also replacing the memory, once again, without diagnostic proof, but just because "that could be the problem").

And let me re-emphasize how awesome it is to do on-site service even though the paperwork I've got doesn't say I'm automatically entitled to that. I live five hours away from Portland, so it's not like one of the employees from the Portland Sony store can just drive on over to check it out.

I'm sorry that you've had a very bad experience with them. But this was a very good experience with them.

 

Update: when I spoke to them, they said they'd have someone call in about three business days to set up the warranty repair. That's today. I received a call just after 9am from a local individual who could do the repair as early as tomorrow morning and wanted to know my availability. He seemed pleasant.

So far so good. I'll let people know how it goes tomorrow.

 

Cool.

On my side, I've just told my lawyers the outcome I want.

 

Not to burst your bubble but there have been some horrible stories about these on-site repair folks. Search the forum. I advise that you take detailed and dated photos right before the guy comes. Hopefully nothing goes wrong though.

 

Usually the problem is when you mail it in. Otherwise, if they do onsite repair, I've found that they're usually contractors. I've had a guy come in and ask if I've ever opened up my laptop, and I kinda had to guide him there.

In any case, that's the reason for this thread, Sony has a reputation of horrid service, but they also occasionally do it right

 

Repair was done today. The individual who did the repair was a subcontractor from Grants Pass with materials sent from Sony. He met me at my office (like I had asked) and was professional and courteous and seemed experienced. No complaints at all. The machine is up and running now; we'll see if that lasts (I'm hoping yes, it sounded like a bad HDD to most people I've talked to).

 

I'm glad to hear positive reports. I'm planning on getting the Ivy Bridge Vaio S 15" and service is key in customer satisfaction.

 

1 report for a bog-standard warranty service, yeah.

Or maybe they really are trying to clean up their act in the US. Shame it's not rolled around to these shores, if that is indeed the case.

 

Holy cow, didn't realize that one person sharing their personal experience could be the source of such scorn. I posted a thread about my experience. Of course I'm talking about MY experience in that thread. Just like if you started a thread about your lawyers (hiring multiple lawyers over a laptop? How does that make economic sense?), that would just be about YOUR experience.

 

Not so much scorn as it's likely a fluke

No seriously, I'm glad it worked out well for you - any claim is potentially a PITA even if it doesn't approach the seemingly-usual-for-me-epic-levels-of-Sony-fail. Just don't get all excited over your first problem-free claim, is all I'm implying...

 

My "first problem-free claim" is the most pleasant warranty experience I've ever had in my life with ANY manufacturer (electronics, car, etc). Replacing hardware even when diagnostics didn't detect the problem, on-site service, and zero waiting on hold.

 

Heh, people have said Dell's support is absolute junk, yet I've had 4/4 good experiences with them on that reguard. Oh, well, up to luck, I'd guess

 

XPS support is what really nuked my willingness to buy a (even 'high-end') consumer-grade Dell ever again. Outright failures are easy warranty's for any maker. Obvious build / tolerance issues on the other hand? Good luck with that with either Sony or Dell's case in my experience. I even had Dell disputing a new screen that looked like one of those old-school cinema uplighting effects saying it was "normal".

 

Heh, Dell's tech support convinces me Dell is good at support. Why I had to go 4 times? Because my first M11X R1 was horrid. The replacement R2 wasn't any better.