Re: Play Station 3 - Sony Customer Service Experience
and aren't we all thrilled that Sony won the HD war. So now we can pay 3x as much for an HD player that will have lousy customer service. Plus they wont sell the rights to produce it to any country that might make them less expensive.
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Re: Play Station 3 - Sony Customer Service Experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by zetachi
and aren't we all thrilled that Sony won the HD war. So now we can pay 3x as much for an HD player that will have lousy customer service. Plus they wont sell the rights to produce it to any country that might make them less expensive.
sony's bd-rom drive for the pc is amazing and it's pretty inexpensive. i don't know how one could find $199.99+40 for an extended warranty all that expensive as long as you have a recent hdcp vid card and an optical out with good speakers (like the behringers, or many enthusiasts already have logitech z5500s), unless 2 channel pcm 24/96 isn't good enough.
sony also wasn't the only supporter of blu-ray, nor were they the creators of it. they simply supported it, so they weren't the only ones to win the war.
Re: Play Station 3 - Sony Customer Service Experience
Quote:
Originally Posted by vote ron paul
sony's bd-rom drive for the pc is amazing and it's pretty inexpensive. i don't know how one could find $199.99+40 for an extended warranty all that expensive as long as you have a recent hdcp vid card and an optical out with good speakers (like the behringers, or many enthusiasts already have logitech z5500s), unless 2 channel pcm 24/96 isn't good enough.
sony also wasn't the only supporter of blu-ray, nor were they the creators of it. they simply supported it, so they weren't the only ones to win the war.
hmm could have sworn it's mostly called Sony blu-ray ?
Re: Play Station 3 - Sony Customer Service Experience
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Originally Posted by Gator650
The 80GB is the same price as what I paid for my 60. If the 60 is discontinued, it just seems easier to me that if there is a backlog, to send out an 80 and keep business going as usual. Also, the concept of inventory isn't something state of the art. How they are not able to anticipate a shortage and warn me accordingly is also pretty sad. You have X in inventory, you have issued returns for Y products in the upcoming week.
From a business standpoint, it's not a fair exchange for Sony. Even if the 80GB model is priced the same as the 60, and the discrepancy in cost between both hard drives is probably negligible, you're asking for an upgraded unit, and in so doing, depriving someone else of their return for an 80GB unit, i.e. to keep you happy, they need to keep someone else in discontent. Seeing as returns are based on the number of refurbished units on hand, and the backlog of 60GB units could be anything from an unexpected surge in returns during the same period to a shortage of 60GB remanufactured units to begin with, there's no way for Sony to reasonably anticipate who needs what at a given point in time. Like anything, stock of any product fluctuates, and this is no different when dealing with a specific model of a refurbished unit. It's safe to assume that Sony does take into account contingencies and plan accordingly, but Murphy's law has a way of cropping up from time to time.
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If all my information has potentially been lost because of them, they should at least make the basic steps to give me the assurance that my account is ok.
The old adage "no news is good news" has never been truer in this situation. Calling everyone whose account has not been compromised is an expensive, time-consuming process that is unnecessary to begin with. As a consumer, I would want to be notified if (and only if) my account was affected (which is what Sony did for those customers), otherwise, you should take some consolation in the fact that your account wasn't tampered with. You should only be concerned if your account was breached, not the other way around.
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Re: Play Station 3 - Sony Customer Service Experience
after doing a little more research it seems the that emulation the 80gb model provides is like that on the 360. simply software emulation of select titles rather than all ps2 games.
where as the 20 and 60 models had all the ps2 components and ran all ps2 games natively.
while i understand trying to drop the price, i really think that dropping ps2 functionality was a bad idea.
and PP your not looking at it from a business standpoint, your looking at it from the standpoint of a biased consumer.
ie: you believe its unfair that someone would get in return what you perceive as being a better or possibly more expensive model for free.
secondly your made up scenario only makes sense if sony were having problems keeping the 80gb model in stock as well. only then could it negatively affect another consumer if they were to give him an 80gb ps3 model. if this were the case it would suggest two things, sony has been having some major hardware issues with their consoles, and/or 80gb ps3's have been selling like hotcakes and a new one can't be provided.
now lets look at the fact that sony has been having a hell of a time trying to SELL the consoles, and the fact that the 60gb is discontinued.
yes this means that they generally aren't manufacturing anymore. so here the problem. if your not making anymore and your current stockpile is primarily coming from refurbished consoles from which they can be quickly expended with no adequate income of new or refurbished 60gb ps3's.
the logical solution is to push out a comparable alternative, which in this case is the 80gb ps3. which will be manufactured and supported and will have a stronger supply of refurbished models at some point in the future. the alternative is to leave the customer hanging without ANYTHING for an unknown amount of time. anyone with common sense can tell you how easily that can affect profits. best case scenario with that alternative is the customer becomes wary of sony products and less likely to purchase sony products in the future after having a horrible experience.
worst case scenario is something like this, word gets out and affects even more sales.
its actually cheaper and easier for businesses to retain customers (means more profit) than it is to bring in new customers.
Re: Play Station 3 - Sony Customer Service Experience
i don't know what's so hard about buying the store's warranty.
i never buy anything without it.
I warn people all the time, but they never listen. Instead of listening to me, they just wait forever to get a working system and pay a lot of shipping costs, and i really don't feel a whole lot of sympathy for anyone who doesn't buy the store's warranty whenever they buy something that costs a lot.
You could've probably smashed your 60 GB on purpose, and exchanged it with the store's warranty for an 80 GB.
I know my cousin got mad at his step-father and smashed his kenwood dvd player back in the day, but he bought the store's warranty with it (i don't remember where) and they just swapped for a brand new one.
If i were sony, i wouldn't even offer a warranty.
How many times do people actually hear of manufacturer's warranties working out? I sure don't hear of it very often.
Re: Play Station 3 - Sony Customer Service Experience
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Originally Posted by modru2004
while i understand trying to drop the price, i really think that dropping ps2 functionality was a bad idea.
Seeing as they went with software emulation to handle PS2 backward compatibility on the 80GB unit, technically, they could have implemented this on the 40GB model, but then it would be harder to distinguish the features with the top-tier model, as well as make it more difficult to justify the price difference.
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and PP your not looking at it from a business standpoint, your looking at it from the standpoint of a biased consumer. ie: you believe its unfair that someone would get in return what you perceive as being a better or possibly more expensive model for free.
If I was biased, I would have sided with Gator650, i.e. as a gesture of good faith, Sony could have sent him an 80GB unit to replace the 60GB model he sent in for repairs.
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secondly your made up scenario only makes sense if sony were having problems keeping the 80gb model in stock as well. only then could it negatively affect another consumer if they were to give him an 80gb ps3 model. if this were the case it would suggest two things, sony has been having some major hardware issues with their consoles, and/or 80gb ps3's have been selling like hotcakes and a new one can't be provided.
You misconstrued what I said. It's anyone's guess as to whether they have a surplus or shortage of 80GB units on hand to address those consumers who sent in their 80GB units for repairs or exchange. Gator650 had a defective 60GB unit which he sent in for repair or replacement. Sony has a backlog of 60GB requests, hence the delay in getting out a refurbished 60GB unit to Gator650; he suggested that they send out an 80GB model because no 60GB refurbs were on hand; the call centre supervisor didn't think this was right (and neither did I). If Sony made the decision to send out 80GB units in place of the 60GB units, that's one thing, and they should inform customers accordingly. Seeing as Sony is still sending out 60GB refurbished units as replacements to customers, there was no logical reason to send Gator650 an 80GB unit.
I can only assume that PS2 backward compatibility was somewhat unimportant to Gator650 and that he would be happier with a unit that had increased HD space, but not every customer feels that way. The 60GB unit had the Emotion Engine CPU embedded, which ensured 100% compatibility with PS2 titles; the 80GB unit, with software emulation, offered ~97% PS2 compatibility: this matters to some customers.
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the logical solution is to push out a comparable alternative, which in this case is the 80gb ps3. which will be manufactured and supported and will have a stronger supply of refurbished models at some point in the future. the alternative is to leave the customer hanging without ANYTHING for an unknown amount of time. anyone with common sense can tell you how easily that can affect profits. best case scenario with that alternative is the customer becomes wary of sony products and less likely to purchase sony products in the future after having a horrible experience.
I don't disagree with this proposal, i.e. offer the 80GB replacement upgrade if they're unable to fulfill the demand for 60GB requests. Problem is, if they have a shortage of 80GB refurbished units in addition to the 60GB units (hypothetically speaking), there's really nothing they can do, as sending out new units would be prohibitively expensive.
Re: Play Station 3 - Sony Customer Service Experience
Update Section:
I called them today and the manager said that Sony didn't receive the unit until April 3rd making them right on schedule. He assured me that I will have my replacement before the end of the week and that they will notify me is there any type of delay and that I am always welcome to call back and get an update if I am concerned.
Ha, I love customer support. I guess the mystery is now why the 'Overnight shipping' took almost two weeks to get there, and why the first team I talked to provided such 'inaccurate' information. FYI, I start every call by giving them the service request number issued to me on 3/20/2008 to make sure there is no confusion on the information they need to pull up, but alas, I suppose that isn't enough.
On the upside, with the new date that they are using, everything is right on time!
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