Tuesday, July 21st 2009
Samsung, or How To Fail at Outsourcing
Outsourcing is all the rage in modern times. Every company is hoping to score a contract for a good price and then push the workload off to the local guy. That way they make the big bucks and the local guy can get some money as well. There are plenty of insane little stories of outsourcing like the ones for the "rebuilding" contracts in Iraq, which were awarded to big US companies for unbelievable sums. These then turned around and outsourced that work to a small local company in the country for a fraction of the price.
The Onion News Network - a satire based on real life big shots like CNN and NBC - has been going after that issue with their YouTube video of personal outsourcing of americans. This brings me to my current issue: Samsung and their warranty service.
I happen to have a 30 inch monitor for my workstation, which did not seem to take any DVI signal anymore, so I call up the Samsung hotline from Austria, just to be connected to their german call center - so far nothing out of the ordinary. They were quick about taking down my details and setting up a support ticket along with the promise of a pickup within 24 hours along with the confirmation that the issue will be solved within 10 working days. So I get a call from the transportation firm to confirm a pickup date and time, at which the LCD monitor is picked up. Once again - so far so good, but this is where the real fun begins.
Samsung has elected a local company here in Austria - called Tectraxx - to take care of warranty issues for them, that being the first level of outsourcing. These have then outsourced the actual repair to another company called AVMS. So my monitor - which I require for work - starts on a wonderous journey from my home town to Vienna, where it is checked to confirm the defect, then packed up again and sent onward to another company, which then rechecks the item again. I should note at this point, that other monitor manufacturers like Dell manage to do a next business day swap - no questions asked. So after a whooping 7 business days, my unit manages to make it to AVMS, which actually promptly manages to isolate the problem, but does not have any parts in stock. Another classic problem when outsourcing - sure you can repair units, but you still need to order and stock the needed parts, which takes time. Now with 7 out of the promised 10 days burned away by a trip all over Austria, the unit is sitting there waiting for a replacement part. That part then does not manage to get there within the quoted 2 to 3 business days, but instead takes twice the time.
So, now we are at 13 business days.
At this point, the unit is ready to be shipped back to Tectraxx - yes not directly to me. It takes 3 business days for them just to pick the unit up from AVMS and another day to receive it. It is then checked again and sent onward to me. Needless to say, I opened the warranty ticket on June 25th and I have yet to receive the unit back. The guys at Tectraxx cannot promise a delivery by the end of the week - friday the 24th of Juli as they have no information from AVMS yet - great.
Sure some of you may say "huh, not even a month", but in my case the lack of efficiency, communication and inability to plan ahead is so blatantly obvious. Once my unit reached Tectraxx I was no longer able to call them to get an update on the status. Samsung, Tectraxx, AVMS and the transport firm all have my issue logged under seperate tickets with no information beyond their duty along the chain. It also begs the question if it were not cheaper for Samsung to invest in some infrastructure themselves instead of outsourcing everything.
So this leads me to ask the question: "Have you had any horrid warranty issues?" Not so much ones where it just took long, but one were the defective item was pushed down such an inefficient chain instead of doing the obvious? If so, let us know.
The Onion News Network - a satire based on real life big shots like CNN and NBC - has been going after that issue with their YouTube video of personal outsourcing of americans. This brings me to my current issue: Samsung and their warranty service.
I happen to have a 30 inch monitor for my workstation, which did not seem to take any DVI signal anymore, so I call up the Samsung hotline from Austria, just to be connected to their german call center - so far nothing out of the ordinary. They were quick about taking down my details and setting up a support ticket along with the promise of a pickup within 24 hours along with the confirmation that the issue will be solved within 10 working days. So I get a call from the transportation firm to confirm a pickup date and time, at which the LCD monitor is picked up. Once again - so far so good, but this is where the real fun begins.
Samsung has elected a local company here in Austria - called Tectraxx - to take care of warranty issues for them, that being the first level of outsourcing. These have then outsourced the actual repair to another company called AVMS. So my monitor - which I require for work - starts on a wonderous journey from my home town to Vienna, where it is checked to confirm the defect, then packed up again and sent onward to another company, which then rechecks the item again. I should note at this point, that other monitor manufacturers like Dell manage to do a next business day swap - no questions asked. So after a whooping 7 business days, my unit manages to make it to AVMS, which actually promptly manages to isolate the problem, but does not have any parts in stock. Another classic problem when outsourcing - sure you can repair units, but you still need to order and stock the needed parts, which takes time. Now with 7 out of the promised 10 days burned away by a trip all over Austria, the unit is sitting there waiting for a replacement part. That part then does not manage to get there within the quoted 2 to 3 business days, but instead takes twice the time.
So, now we are at 13 business days.
At this point, the unit is ready to be shipped back to Tectraxx - yes not directly to me. It takes 3 business days for them just to pick the unit up from AVMS and another day to receive it. It is then checked again and sent onward to me. Needless to say, I opened the warranty ticket on June 25th and I have yet to receive the unit back. The guys at Tectraxx cannot promise a delivery by the end of the week - friday the 24th of Juli as they have no information from AVMS yet - great.
Sure some of you may say "huh, not even a month", but in my case the lack of efficiency, communication and inability to plan ahead is so blatantly obvious. Once my unit reached Tectraxx I was no longer able to call them to get an update on the status. Samsung, Tectraxx, AVMS and the transport firm all have my issue logged under seperate tickets with no information beyond their duty along the chain. It also begs the question if it were not cheaper for Samsung to invest in some infrastructure themselves instead of outsourcing everything.
So this leads me to ask the question: "Have you had any horrid warranty issues?" Not so much ones where it just took long, but one were the defective item was pushed down such an inefficient chain instead of doing the obvious? If so, let us know.
52 Comments on Samsung, or How To Fail at Outsourcing
And I'm sure their Austrian cronies are telling jokes about it at lunch.
The folks over at GeCube don't believe in having real email addresses or phone numbers on their website. They have absolutely no way to communicate with them.
Their emails bounce back and all telephone lines are disconnected. Kinda sucks when you have a $300 4870 thats dead.
forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=99158
^
By the way: "Outsourcing involves the transfer of the management and/or day-to-day execution of an entire business function to an external service provider"
You can outsource anything from manufacturing to services such as PR, HR, and warranty handling :)
As for outsourcing, they do save a lot of money this way.
They contract a company to handle their repairs, it's off their chest they pay the bill.
The company that does the repair is generally a electronic repair company, who also outsource for certain particular types of repairs they do not want to pay or train their people to do, generally do to the current market in their area.
Comes down to the same old story, you can open 20 micro Bestbuy stores in a metro area, or open 2 large stores, sometimes that 2 larger stores is going to be more efficient.
I don't like it from a customer stand point, and I wouldn't expect anyone else to either, but it is just business.
I bought a Keyboard made by Cherry its a small one for about 13eur+ shipping. I' d linke to have a hand rest with this unit. So i started searching for one and there is no one to buy. I contacted Cherry about this and they asked me for my contact information and after one week I got a hand rest for free... In case of an 50eur Keyboard I would say okay, but this is a 13eur unit.... Honestly I was very impressed.
The other story is around ym Asus p5b Deluxe... This Board is now 9 months old and today I send it the fourth time into Rma... There is no way to contact Asus about Warranty status or something. There is just waiting time. Alls in all it take normally around 4 weeks for Asus to repair this Board, every time it returns something else get broken or is at arrival...
I mean this shoudl be the premium board by Asus but this support.... Honestly: I will never buy an Asus again....
Short story WORST MISTAKE EVER - WILL NEVER BUY THEIR CRAP EVER AGAIN.
They have NO support of any realistic kind, they outsource all of their everything to the cheapest nastiest backyard venders under the sun they flat out IGNORE ANY AND ALL RESPONSIBILITY TO THEIR WARRANTY'S and just plain don't give a FFFK about anyone at all after you have purchased their overpriced garbage.
I wont go on any longer about specific examples, save to say it took us 3 months and more than 15 trips to 2 different "Official Samsung Service" dealers to get a printer replaced under warranty - One of witch just flat out said they DON'T CARE IF IT WAS UNDER WARRANTY - THEY WILL NOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT - PERIOD, and still expected us to sign a "Release Form" for the return of our printer - which was actually an invoice for repairs that HADN'T BEEN DONE, and cost MORE THAN REPLACING THE PRINTER.
Needles to say we did NOT - and will never even STAND NEXT TO a Samsung product ever again as long as we live & will advise anyone who ever asks us, to never ever touch their brand.
I'll give Dell credit, though - when the monitor is under warranty, they're quick to send out a tech or a replacement unit.
Everyone posting here admits that these are re-tellings of personal experiences & nothing more.
If Samsung cant take the heat for the pit that they have dug themselves then it's on their heads and nobody else's.
Some of these things were done, but as it stands, Samsung will take it offensively. It is totally skewed against Samsung, and looks more like a bashing of the company than an editorial. Yes, it may say editorial, but it's phrased differently.
I can see W1zz getting a letter from Samsung very soon...
1. I am just taking Samsung as an example and am trying to get the opinion of the readers. That seems to work and I have read through all the responses you guys have given.
2. It is clearly labled as an editorial. The only reason it shows up under news is the fact that the front page items are linked to this part of the forum :)
3. As for Samsung "bashing": I never said their products is bad or that their support sucks, I just question their workflow and how things are done and wanted to know if there are other - possibly worse - stories out there.
The purpose of an editorial is to post ones experience and express an opinion formed from these experiences and I wanted to know what the visitors of TPU think :)
cheers
DS
I work for a world wide electronics manufacture, specifically with support so I know all about warranty returns and necessary processing to keep the customer happy. Granted we dont outsource nearly anything so I cant help but be an outsider looking in, but I would say that Samsung has the right people in place to make the big decisions and this is obviously a faulty system I would hope they address.
Hope you get your 30" back soon. :toast:
Edit, I personally think that this should be renamed "How to Fail: Outsourcing"
As to whether they should be in the news section or an Editorial section is another discussion.
I, for one, would love to have an editorial section that was moderated, and the articles reviewed for content, that some of us could write in. There have been many times when I am doing extensive research on the state of gaming market, genre proliferation and hybridization, and other topics that I think would bring lively discussion to the boards.
Just my 2 cents. :toast:
keep in mind, y'all, that RMA/warranty experiences vary from one region to the next, as many "spotlight" manufacturers have numerous warranty facilities spaced out to facilitate quicker claims handling . . . while one region's ability to handle a claim might be pure tripe, another region might be knocking them out of the ballpark . . .
personally, I've never had any poor experiences with Samsung, nor have ever had a need to have one of their products addressed under warranty . . . from my experiences, their products are great quality, solid and overly reliable.
Everything has to be done via where you bought it, and if that store closed down or wont help you... you're screwed.
Abit did it.
If so I recieved three, count them three fans doomed to fail on my MSI motherboard, for a total cost greater than the northbridge cooler I bought to save me the time of pulling out my motherboard to replace a piece of crap designed to fail. I was going to go for the fourth, but the rage it put me in to replace yet another was too much.
Most of the warranty service are in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, for the others countrys if you have a problem depends on the store if their policy is to repair or replace, but mostly isnt one either ther other "is your fault! It wuz an electric problem! This has been shaked! etc, etc, etc"