Editorial Samsung, or How To Fail at Outsourcing

[Darksaber]

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.

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[W1zzard]

Simply vote with your wallet instead of crying. Don't ever buy a Samsung product again, there is a lot of competition out there with similar offers.

 

[wiak]

w1zz how the heck can you NOT buy a samsung product?
they are in EVERYthing from memory to televisions to phones and beyond

 

[tkpenalty]

:shadedshu

No offense to you guys but you've lost it.

I LOVE my samsung products. They're the best. Maybe in your region samsung might suck but I find them to be one of the better companies here and in asia as well.

 

[Kreij]

I should note at this point, that other monitor manufacturers like Dell manage to do a next business day swap - no questions asked.

There you go. I've always received parts from Dell the day after I called them.
I've yet to have a Dell LCD monitor fail.

 

[Rexter]

Ah, the wonders of outsourcing. I remember writing a huge report about that. I cant recall any hassle with techsupport or RMA, mostly because i dont want any hassle and buy a new item if the old breaks. Ive only RMA'd my gpu and that went fine.
Outsourcing is a double edged sword. Its cheap, quick and easy for a large company to outsource parts of their business, but can come at a cost for others.
One example is Darksaber current predicament. Others are far worse. Lets take an example. My brother works for a large flight travel company, (dont know the english word) which name i wont reveal, in a department where they document plane tickets among other things. The company figured out, that it would be cheaper to fire the six-seven people working there, and then outsource that job to india. SO! They ship, by boat, all the tickets all the way to india, document and handle them, them ship them all the way back here. And that is STILL cheaper.
Thats just insane. So we gotta be "green" and save the earth from pollution? I got the answer right here.
And then the government complains we have so many un-employed. Gee, i wonder why?

 

[mtosev]

:shadedshu

No offense to you guys but you've lost it.

I LOVE my samsung products. They're the best. Maybe in your region samsung might suck but I find them to be one of the better companies here and in asia as well.

I prefere LG.

 

[MoonPig]

Not as bad as yours, but i got an OCZ XTC Memory cooler, the fans were broken on arrival. So i told OCZ. After a week of them telling me to try things in BIOS, they finally agreed to replace the fans. Gave my address and they fella said it'll be with you within a week.

One week passes, nothing.

Two weeks, nothing. So i email them again, he says theres been a mix-up. It'll be with me ASAP.

One week passes, nothing.

Two weeks, nothing. Email time again, the guy says the same, only with hundreds more 'sorry's. "I'll deal with it personally" he claims.

I wait (bare in-mind im in college. So i can only collect things Tuesday and Thursday. And before 10:30am everyday before my brother goes to work.) Get home one Wednesday and theres a box in the porch. Luckily the guy had just taken all the details off and posted it.

For two 40mm fans, they posted it in a massive flat box with loads of bubblewrap and afew 'sorry' chainrings... lol.

Sold it afew weeks later... haha.

 

[Triprift]

No i have had no real horror stories like that obviously Samsung in Europe have got problems if thats how things go. Pity you didnt have my sister there to follow up for you guarenteed sheed be on the phone to em and the next day ud have a fully fixed monitor at your door.

 

[qwerty_lesh]

Won't the companies consider this defamation.. why is this making the news page?

 

[btarunr]

Keep us posted about its condition when it finally returns from its tour of Austria.

Won't the companies consider this defamation.. why is this making the news page?

It's an editorial. Like the one in your newspaper.

 

[newtekie1]

Won't the companies consider this defamation.. why is this making the news page?

Companies generally know, as long as the story is true, it can't be defamation.

 

[Disparia]

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.

Not really. I mostly opt for an OEM part if available. I pay less and if it dies, turnaround time is usually 3 days (Newegg standard shipping). Less hassles, less outsourced support calls, etc.

 

[toyo]

I feel that you are still lucky, in an unfortunate kinda way.
My monitor (and router, also), which I acquired 4 months ago from a (Romanian) store (named UltraPRO) is practically without warranty (and it had 3 years written down on the papers I signed at the store when I bought it).
Guess what? In between time, UltraPRO just bankrupted and... disappeared (yes, no more phone lines. And NO MORE STORES). With all the components/PCs/printers etc. it had in service from people like you and I. I don't know the saucy details, but I know many people remained without various electronics, and even many more live with the fear that their new appliance could break any day without any chance of being taken to repairs, as per warranty.
PS: UltraPRO was a big (veeeery big) player on the Romanian PC market. This is a true story. No one knows where to find the company owners...

 

[lemonadesoda]

Simply vote with your wallet. Don't ever buy a Samsung product again, there is a lot of competition out there with similar offers.

Unfair. Samsung do do great products. They need to get this message: BAD MANAGEMENT of EU warranty. Who knows what kind of kick-backs are going on through the outsourcing chain. Let's hope heads roll. Samsung HQ; sort it out!

Good luck Dark. Hope you get a fully working unscratch undamaged warranty repair very soon.

 

[memberix]

Samsung - the biggest scam ever

 

[mrw1986]

I've never had a warranty problem. Always get my stuff back fast and it always goes to one place. Maybe it's just Austria.

 

[MilkyWay]

shouldnt this be on like generalnonsense.net??? joke

anyway i think that its not samsungs fault its more likely the outsourced companies fault

i mean like in the uk rexo handles the hard drives for repair and replacement

mines had a bad sector no problem they say it will get replaced, so it is coming to glasgow and wham it gets sent back to england (address issues or no one at home i think), no problem i answered an email and it was there within 2 days by courier, 2 days because it took them a while to respond to the email

i have a samsung monitor kinda good but its not the best

i do feel bad about the situation the amount of places its been in is ridiculous it should just be like the repair and replacement place and that's it, maybe they would have to wait for a new monitor to come but should not take more than a 5 days for all that if they dont have a monitor or parts which they should lol

 

[Deleted member 3]

You make it look as if Samsung is doing something bad, yet a turn around time of less than a month is quite good compared to certain other companies. I hardly think personal opinions that are this biased belong on the front page, no matter what you call them.

 

[r9]

Yes those people find them self smart outsorcing their jobs. But one day bigger companies will jump them ang go directly to the poor guy in India. It look to me that some one will sleep on the street.
And we wonder why global crisis. Only 10% of people in the world are producing manufactoring other 90% are just trading. No matter how efficient those 10% are can`t feed the whole world.

 

[MilkyWay]

Yes those people find them self smart outsorcing their jobs. But one day bigger companies will jump them ang go directly to the poor guy in India. It look to me that some one will sleep on the street.
And we wonder why global crisis. Only 10% of people in the world are producing manufactoring other 90% are just trading. No matter how efficient those 10% are can`t feed the whole world.

well india actually has a booming it sector and has rapidly developing high tech manufacturing

in some ways its like a non communist nice lovable china

china has its poor india has its poor but both are booming


food has nothing to do with manufacturing, its like agriculture and thats not the same, some places base thier economy on agriculture like places in south america

 

[Necrofire]

I'd like to add that people have at least two good options when it comes to getting what they want from support:

While talking to someone about your item that is with them, be very angry at first, then as they "personally" take care of things, calm down and thank them a few times. Throw in an apology for the anger and the gentleman on the other line will more than likely actually take care of things himself as much as he can.

Or, you can just be as nice as possible but call very often. Apologize for calling so much, and explain you are losing time/money because this item isn't working (I mean, a computer without a monitor can't play crysis very well can it?).

When I spilled a 44 ounces of sugary drink onto my laptop, I sweet-talked them into sending me a free keyboard since my was broken, despite being out of warranty.


Also, w1zz hit the nail on the head. If you are unhappy with a company the best thing you can do is stop purchasing their products. The second best thing you can do is do what you just did, and tell everyone else about bad service.

Regardless of how you handle things Darksaber, call the company that you think has your monitor every day to see what the status is, and keep us updated.

 

[AsRock]

Whats crazy is that it can go though all those companys and still be cheaper than the alternative.

 

[ArmoredCavalry]

At bottom of this article:

I lol'ed

 

[Darksaber]

well the purpose is not to put the doom and gloom on samsung. Nor do i think that samsung makes bad products. What i was trying to point out is the factis the inability of some companies to keep an efficient workflow. I was just interested, if there are other stories like that out ther with such weird service structures. Thus the editorial Samsung just happen to be a great example of the moment

cheers
darksaber

 

[method526]

that sucks man. samsung just makes the service ticket and has an option of either:
1) i ship my monitor to them and they deliver the replacement to my house
2) i ask them to ship to the nearest UPS and swap monitors there, paying nothing, but waiting about 7 business days.

 

[extrasalty]

Knowing big companies, Samsung is laughing all the way to the bank with your money.
And I'm sure their Austrian cronies are telling jokes about it at lunch.