Sony warranty experience: very positive

[Mitlov]

Before buying my Vaio F, I did a lot of research. I heard some people say that Sony has really bad customer service nowadays. Having had some first-hand experience with a warranty claim, I'd like to disagree with that conclusion.

Over the weekend, my Vaio F (roughly six months old) went nuts and announced "OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND" from an MS-DOS screen. I reformatted the hard drive, and it ran okay for two days, then did the same thing. So I called Sony.

First thing I noticed: no lengthy telephone tree, no "all of our operators are currently helping other customers." I had to select two or three options to let them know that this was (1) a repair call (2) about a Vaio (3) that was still under warranty, and then I was transferred to a live person. English was the person's first language, so there was no language barrier (and while they were clearly in India, their accent was not so thick that I had trouble understanding them). They were not tied to a script to the point where it interfered with me just explaining what the problem was.

I explained what happened, and she said "well, if you've already tried reformatting the drive and reinstalling Windows, it sounds like a hardware problem, so let's set up an on-site repair and replace your hard drive and RAM." Just like that. She seemed apologetic that it might be three to five business days before the on-site repair was ready, because they had to get the parts to the right people (to help clarify, I don't live in a major metro area). Frankly, I was expecting to be without the machine for weeks after shipping it to a depot, so this is great. I didn't even realize I had on-site repair...I'd just taken the basic minimum warranty that came with the machine.

I got a follow-up phone call an hour later. This person's accent was pretty thick, and I had some trouble understanding them at first, but besides that, it was a great call. They wanted to double-check that their records accurately reflected the size of my hard drive, rpm speed, and the amount of RAM I have, so that they wouldn't inadvertently install lesser equipment when they did the repair. I really appreciated them double-checking.

I don't have a concrete date yet for the on-site repair, but so far, so good. I'll keep this updated. This is really the sort of "premium" customer service experience that you don't often get in the modern electronics world.

[Achusaysblessyou]

That's nice! Although I also had very good warranty experience with them too. They replaced my fading palmrest, sent a person to me too (too bad I took too long to install a clear protector on it... so it's fading again, outta warranty). I think that's the experience you get if you buy their premium laptops (the on-site service).

[lovelaptops]

Mitlov: did you just call the standard customer/technical support number? Had you ever called it before? What number did you use? Could someone at Sony have figured out that they may be out of business soon if they didn't fix customer support in a hurry?

[Mitlov]

Mitlov: did you just call the standard customer/technical support number? Had you ever called it before? What number did you use? Could someone at Sony have figured out that they may be out of business soon if they didn't fix customer support in a hurry?

Yes, I just called the standard tech support number. It was on the warranty paperwork that the machine came with; I don't have it with me right now. But it's not like I had already set up a claim number online before I called or anything; I just called the 1-800 number. (Or maybe it was 1-888 or something, but you get the idea).

[rrm998]

Thanks for sharing. We don't hear about the positive experiences often enough in forums like this.

[Louche]

^What they said.

[Vogelbung]

Thanks for sharing. We don't hear about the positive experiences often enough in forums like this.

I think there's probably a reason for that.

I for one am once again dreaming about driving a dump truck full of manure and a large trebuchet to my local Sony HQ and using both. Few other companies can make warranty repair such an intensely rage-fying experience in my book.

You'd hope everyone has a basic obvious repair sorted out. Beyond that is when you really find out who does warranty properly.

[Mitlov]

I think there's probably a reason for that.

I for one am once again dreaming about driving a dump truck full of manure and a large trebuchet to my local Sony HQ and using both. Few other companies can make warranty repair such an intensely rage-fying experience in my book.

You'd hope everyone has a basic obvious repair sorted out. Beyond that is when you really find out who does warranty properly.

This is not the first warranty claim I've ever had to file, and no, it's not always near this smooth, even with obvious problems. In the past, I've run into everything from 60-90 minutes on hold to "we won't replace ANYTHING unless we can get diagnostic software to identify the problem." I got neither here. THey were willing to replace components that probably cost 20% the price of the machine based simply on my reporting of symptoms. Hell, chkdsk said the HDD was fine, but they're still replacing it just to be safe (and also replacing the memory, once again, without diagnostic proof, but just because "that could be the problem").

And let me re-emphasize how awesome it is to do on-site service even though the paperwork I've got doesn't say I'm automatically entitled to that. I live five hours away from Portland, so it's not like one of the employees from the Portland Sony store can just drive on over to check it out.

I'm sorry that you've had a very bad experience with them. But this was a very good experience with them.

[Mitlov]

Update: when I spoke to them, they said they'd have someone call in about three business days to set up the warranty repair. That's today. I received a call just after 9am from a local individual who could do the repair as early as tomorrow morning and wanted to know my availability. He seemed pleasant.

So far so good. I'll let people know how it goes tomorrow.

[Vogelbung]

Cool.

On my side, I've just told my lawyers the outcome I want.