Tweet
(cut and paste from a email I sent to a consumer website and then slightly edited and sent to Philips' corporate officers)
Here's the story. I have a Philips TV, 30 inch widescreen HDTV. Real nice, the problem is Philips has the most impossible to deal with customer service ever. I should have known what I was in for when the very first day I had it, I had a problem with the setup and ended up practically screaming at the CSR because she wanted me to swap out my cable box (turned out to be I just had some similarly colored A/V cables switched around). I chalked it up to just some overzealous phone rep and moved on.
What ended up happening is now when I turn the TV on, the power light comes on but the picture doesn't appear. If I unplug the set for about a minute it works fine. This gets annoying as hell after a while. Now the fun truly begins. First thing is when you call in to Philips you get outsourced reps who are barely understandable. I'm not just talking thick accents, I mean you literally can't make out a word they were saying, and I used to work in an area with a fairly large population from India so I'm used to the accent. If I can't make it out, it's bad. I ended up having to be transferred to about 5 different people before I finally got to someone I could understand enough to help me, and it was determined that I needed the TV serviced, as it seems there is an issue with the power supply. I get a couple of names of local TV shops that do Philips warranty work and I think everything's fine? Right?
Wrong.
I call the first name on the list, and I get greeted by a guy who's giving me every impression I'm interrupting something important by asking about getting my TV fixed. He informs me they only send people out from 8-5 Monday to Friday. Literally. Their appointments are from 8-5 so you not only need to take a day off work, you have to spend that day tethered to the house so you don't miss your chance. When I stated that missing a day of work is not exactly in the cards for me, I really started to get the "go away, you bother me" treatment. I was told that they do have shop hours on Saturday but I would have to bring the set in. Now remember I have a 30 inch widescreen TV. I also drive a Camry. Physics would indicate that's an impossibility no matter what you try. Here's the options I got in response (after the guy spoke to his "Sales Manager"):
1. Pay out of my own pocket to rent a truck to get the TV there.
2. Pay out of my own pocket the cost of overtime to send a guy out to my house after 5pm.
I told the guy if he was serious that the only way I can get a in-warranty repair done was to pay extra costs out of my own pocket, then I'd have to look at other options. At that point he literally laughed in my face, said "bye" in a sing-song voice and hung up on me,
This is the kind of service you get from an Authorized Philips Repair Center.
I called Philips back on 9/11 to let them know the kind of treatment I received from a place they recommended to me, and was told that my complaints would be forwarded to their Customer Relations department and someone would get back to me in 1-2 days. I called back in yesterday (9/17) only to be told the turnaround time was 3-4 days but they couldn't connect me to them right now because they closed at 5:30. Funny thing is that I called them a little after 5, but the supervisor I was transferred to repeatedly said the department I needed to speak to was closed. I guess I spent so much time trying to get this resolved I entered a vortex of suck where time runs a half hour faster.
So now I await a call from the Customer Relations department, and I'm really not expecting anything other than empty apologies (every rep offers the same canned "I'm so sorry you're having this problem" script every time I relate my tale of woe) and maybe a pat on the head. It really seems they're trying to just wait me out hoping I'll give up out of frustration.
So let that be a lesson to all, buy a Philips TV and run the risk of having to deal with unintelligible phone reps and service centers who think it's hilarious that you're not willing to lug a big ass TV into their shop for warranty work.
************************************************** **************
Now what really rubs me is that as a phone rep myself I try REALLY REALLY hard to not go all SC on someone, which ends up in just more stress on my part. Words cannot express the sheer frustration that every dealing with this company entails. I've never seen a company that seems so dedicated to not giving a crap and I work for the CABLE COMPANY for chrissakes
Just today I devoted my entire 30 minute lunch break to a follow up call. Fifteen of those minutes were spent with a first-line rep putting me on hold to "access my files". DUDE are you having them walked over individually from the HQ in Holland?
Here's the story. I have a Philips TV, 30 inch widescreen HDTV. Real nice, the problem is Philips has the most impossible to deal with customer service ever. I should have known what I was in for when the very first day I had it, I had a problem with the setup and ended up practically screaming at the CSR because she wanted me to swap out my cable box (turned out to be I just had some similarly colored A/V cables switched around). I chalked it up to just some overzealous phone rep and moved on.
What ended up happening is now when I turn the TV on, the power light comes on but the picture doesn't appear. If I unplug the set for about a minute it works fine. This gets annoying as hell after a while. Now the fun truly begins. First thing is when you call in to Philips you get outsourced reps who are barely understandable. I'm not just talking thick accents, I mean you literally can't make out a word they were saying, and I used to work in an area with a fairly large population from India so I'm used to the accent. If I can't make it out, it's bad. I ended up having to be transferred to about 5 different people before I finally got to someone I could understand enough to help me, and it was determined that I needed the TV serviced, as it seems there is an issue with the power supply. I get a couple of names of local TV shops that do Philips warranty work and I think everything's fine? Right?
Wrong.
I call the first name on the list, and I get greeted by a guy who's giving me every impression I'm interrupting something important by asking about getting my TV fixed. He informs me they only send people out from 8-5 Monday to Friday. Literally. Their appointments are from 8-5 so you not only need to take a day off work, you have to spend that day tethered to the house so you don't miss your chance. When I stated that missing a day of work is not exactly in the cards for me, I really started to get the "go away, you bother me" treatment. I was told that they do have shop hours on Saturday but I would have to bring the set in. Now remember I have a 30 inch widescreen TV. I also drive a Camry. Physics would indicate that's an impossibility no matter what you try. Here's the options I got in response (after the guy spoke to his "Sales Manager"):
1. Pay out of my own pocket to rent a truck to get the TV there.
2. Pay out of my own pocket the cost of overtime to send a guy out to my house after 5pm.
I told the guy if he was serious that the only way I can get a in-warranty repair done was to pay extra costs out of my own pocket, then I'd have to look at other options. At that point he literally laughed in my face, said "bye" in a sing-song voice and hung up on me,
This is the kind of service you get from an Authorized Philips Repair Center.
I called Philips back on 9/11 to let them know the kind of treatment I received from a place they recommended to me, and was told that my complaints would be forwarded to their Customer Relations department and someone would get back to me in 1-2 days. I called back in yesterday (9/17) only to be told the turnaround time was 3-4 days but they couldn't connect me to them right now because they closed at 5:30. Funny thing is that I called them a little after 5, but the supervisor I was transferred to repeatedly said the department I needed to speak to was closed. I guess I spent so much time trying to get this resolved I entered a vortex of suck where time runs a half hour faster.
So now I await a call from the Customer Relations department, and I'm really not expecting anything other than empty apologies (every rep offers the same canned "I'm so sorry you're having this problem" script every time I relate my tale of woe) and maybe a pat on the head. It really seems they're trying to just wait me out hoping I'll give up out of frustration.
So let that be a lesson to all, buy a Philips TV and run the risk of having to deal with unintelligible phone reps and service centers who think it's hilarious that you're not willing to lug a big ass TV into their shop for warranty work.
************************************************** **************
Now what really rubs me is that as a phone rep myself I try REALLY REALLY hard to not go all SC on someone, which ends up in just more stress on my part. Words cannot express the sheer frustration that every dealing with this company entails. I've never seen a company that seems so dedicated to not giving a crap and I work for the CABLE COMPANY for chrissakes
Just today I devoted my entire 30 minute lunch break to a follow up call. Fifteen of those minutes were spent with a first-line rep putting me on hold to "access my files". DUDE are you having them walked over individually from the HQ in Holland?
Comment