Is poor customer service the norm for console repair?
Okay, I've done a pretty fair amount of online sales and service in my days. I've done work for NASA, a few Hollywod film companies, the International Church of Scientology, etc. I'm quite certain that this classifies as bad customer service:
1. Tell a customer that I can perform work for them
2. Ignore multiple emails from the customer for five days, leaving them with no indication of how long it will take before I can respond, no indication of how long it will be until I can do the work, and no indication of whether or not I feel I will be able to actually complete the job
3. When customer is annoyed because I have ignored them, treat them as if they did something wrong because I get "100s of emails every day", but of course don't address any of their concerns or answer any of the questions they had about the work that they wanted done
Am I crazy? Is this just the way that things work these days? Is this the quality of service that I'm supposed to expect when trying to get my consoles worked on? I'm seriously considering selling my game collection if this is what I have to put up with to try to pay someone to perform work for me.
Why don't people just charge more if this work is so in demand that it pains them to have customers attempt to hire them?
1. Tell a customer that I can perform work for them
2. Ignore multiple emails from the customer for five days, leaving them with no indication of how long it will take before I can respond, no indication of how long it will be until I can do the work, and no indication of whether or not I feel I will be able to actually complete the job
3. When customer is annoyed because I have ignored them, treat them as if they did something wrong because I get "100s of emails every day", but of course don't address any of their concerns or answer any of the questions they had about the work that they wanted done
Am I crazy? Is this just the way that things work these days? Is this the quality of service that I'm supposed to expect when trying to get my consoles worked on? I'm seriously considering selling my game collection if this is what I have to put up with to try to pay someone to perform work for me.
Why don't people just charge more if this work is so in demand that it pains them to have customers attempt to hire them?
Comments
My advice to you is to do research beforehand. We have a couple of people here on NA who perform console repair/modding work. You can check their transaction history to see what people said about prior work. Ask for referrals here or other sites like AtariAge. As to the guy in your example, I'd just pack up and find someone else. If you're waiting for a reply for five days only to get a snarky response, the odds are high turnaround time for your console will be equally as bad.
I always try to be open and communicate well but I am used to being this way at work. Another thing you need to realize is that most people who tend to be into console repair stuff tend to be more introverted so communication is not always the best.
The thing is, the person in question has a great track record for quality of work in repairs and modding. I have no idea what their track record is for customer communication, courtesy, and promptness. I don't know if it's expected that people accept this kind of treatment from independent niche services, but I know that it's something that I wouldn't accept from a business and I wouldn't accept of myself as an online dealer.
They don't have my money or console, so it's nothing like that, but I was trying to give them my console and got no response. (Even though the one response I got initially said they would do repairs on the console)
It would be one thing if I was told, "I can only respond to customer emails once a week, so please send any questions that you have and be patient." Instead I'm left completely in the dark, with no timeframe and no idea if the problems I described are even something that the repairer feels they can correct.
I understand that things come up some times. Occasionally I may be a day late on shipping an item so I'll offer the customer a partial refund or anything else I can do to make up for the inconvenience. To me, the difference between a good seller and bad is that the good seller will try to make up for their mistakes. A bad seller will blame the customer.
I can promise you that if I told you that I would do something and then didn't respond to three emails for at least five days, I would be very understanding and apologetic when I did get back and do whatever I could to avoid negative feedback.
It's not even that I waited five days to get a snarky response... I waited five days without a response at all, and when I got tired of that I messaged them on IRC, at which point I received a snarky response. That was yesterday morning and still no response to questions about my console, so apparently knowing their customer is dissatisfied makes no difference either.
If it's a matter of being selectively chosen, as the modder shines their glowing light of approval on your console, giving you the exclusive privilege of paying for service work, then wouldn't it mean I was chosen when I asked if they would work on my console and they said yes and told me to email them about it? Shouldn't that entitle me to privileged benefit of email responses without snark in a reasonable amount of time?
It's a common theme that people who do service work are no longer accepting new requests, and some of the people who are doing the work, or selling premodded consoles, have a reputation for doing shoddy work. It's frustrating to think all of these games I love could be useless if my consoles die and nobody would service them. The other option would be to spend the money on repair equipment instead and start learning how to do the work myself, but my life is already so full of unfinished projects, it would definitely be worth it to me to have it done by an experienced expert at this time in my life.
Thank you for the suggestions on consoles techs! I'll check out some of these options and hope I find a good match for what I need done.
So for me it's fun for a side hobby, but not fun as a job. So I quit taking consoles to fix for profit. I do still take them if they are free and still make my facebook posts.
I'm not sure what you are looking to have repaired but if you are already having doubts, I would find someone else. Unless this person is downright amazing and the only one who can do whatever you need done. If the person is one of the big name people out there, what you are describing is sort of par for the course unfortunately. I know some of the big guys see 5-10 consoles for repairs daily.
I'm sorry to hear that you have had a bad experience and haven't even sent the console in but maybe that really is a sign to move on.
Is is hyperbole that the top console techs may receive hundreds of emails per day? If not then it seems like some sort of system to limit contact may be justified. There's no way that hundreds of people a day are having their questions answered without someone responding to emails full time.
I'll confess that I was unreasonably upset about this, but I'd venture to guess that most people would walk away from most businesses in similar situations. Niche independent work may be different, and I'm sure I could be more patient.