RE: Moving on

"Laurie Solomon" <laurie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Thu, 28 Mar 2002 11:40:24 -0600

Art,
I tend to agree with about 90% of what you have said below.  One of the
things that I have found very troublesome of recent when it comes to dealing
with mail order, distributor, and manufactures about items, parts, and
service has been a high rate of miscommunications due to the high number of
English as a second language employees who appear top have some difficulty
understanding what is being requested and whom I have been unable to
understand as well.  The result has been a great waste of time and money
returning items that were not what I wanted and thought I had ordered,
telephoning or writting to correct errors in orders due to
miscommunications, and telephoning or writing to follow up on orders of
items that were suppose to be in stock but in reality were not in stock or
even backordered (they were just unavailable but the service rep failed to
communicate this but proceeded to take the order as if such items were
available) or on repair services that failed to correct the problem because
the repair personnel did not understand the description of the problem and
looked at something else which was not a problem, returniong the item as
having been repaired or as not having a problem (in the former case charging
for the alledged repair).

Now some of these things appear to be inherent in the process of non
face-to-face interactions (no matter if the speaker is a native speaker or a
non-native speaker); but some are the result of miscommunications due to
misunderstandings produced by the pareties not being able top clearly
communicate with each other.  I have some trouble understanding why
companies put people that have a less than satisfactory command of the
language but who may be otherwise very competent and nice in positions where
they have to communicate accurrately with others in a language that they do
not have full and complete command of - especially if it involves non
face-to-face communications where it is difficult to hammer out a common
understanding between the parties.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-scan@leben.com [mailto:owner-scan@leben.com]On Behalf Of
Arthur Entlich
Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2002 3:00 AM
To: scan@leben.com
Subject: Re: Moving on

byard pidgeon wrote:

> It's best that Mr. Hemingway is "moving on", as is Polaroid with it's out
of
> touch with reality concept of customer service.
> Time to get in touch with the new paradigm...you bought it, it's all
yours.
>

Yes, a sad statement on the "new reality" of cutting every corner to
keep the price point over anything else.  I just want to know when
filmscanners are going to be sold at Walmart. (Satisfaction guaranteed ;-))

The truth is its is our own doing.  We will buy at the store that saves
us the extra $5, even if for that $5 you get a local retailer who

provided tech help. service, and liaison with the distributor.

I do not buy goods on the internet (other than ebay on occasion, where I
expect to be ripped off, and 80% of the time I am, so I never pay what
something is supposed to be "worth" because the odds are I won't get
what was advertised anyway).  Not only is there shipping, and often
customs and exchange to here in Canada, but I have no control over if I
get a factory sealed box or a return that's been repacked, I don't want
to pay double shipping, I don't want to spend hours on a toll free (if
you're lucky) lines waiting to speak to some surly character who tells
me I have to pay a 15% restocking charge after they sent me the wrong
item or it was damaged in shipping, or it was defective.

Hey, but that's just crazy me.  I'm sure I could save, heck, $100 a year
on my thousands of dollars of purchases if I went that route.  Instead,
I buy from a local brick and mortar dealer who I can look in the eye,
scream at if necessary, and even bring to court on the rare occasion
that was necessary.  But, honestly , by picking a good retailer, and a
good manufacturer, and paying a bit more, I've found most of my
headaches have been "lessened".

Scanner example:  My HP S-10 (defective) became 2 more, (found to have
an inherent defect) became an HP-20, also found to be problematic, and
finally nearly two years later my local dealer took back the HP-20 and
did a straight exchange for the Minolta Dual II, which unfortunately
also has problems and I'm on number two, soon to be three.  My dealer
OFFERED this to me.  I did not even have to ask.  He knew of my problems
with the HP models and he asked what was happening.  I told him I had
reached a dead end with HP, and he said, well, what if we take it back
and send it back to HP for you, and use the money toward another brand.
He special ordered the Minolta Dual II, since at the time the store
didn't carry it, and gave me a straight across on it.

He even offered to help me with the Minolta exchanges, but I decided
that he had not made any money, in fact probably lost money on the whole
transaction, so I've been dealing directly with Minolta since.  What
internet company would ever do something like that?

Its when things "go wrong" that a local dealer really is a great
investment, but since you never know when something will go wrong, why
risk it?

Now, as I said local repair service is quite another matter completely,
and I avoid them like the plague.

The same, I suppose, holds true for manufacturers.  If you find a
company that has pretty consistent quality control and good customer
service, they are worth paying more for.  How much more, I suppose,
depends upon your level of tolerance for dealing with angst. ;-)

Art

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