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| A broken 34470A and Keysight's terrible customer service |
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| tggzzz:
--- Quote from: 2N3055 on August 28, 2021, 01:25:12 pm --- --- Quote from: tggzzz on August 28, 2021, 11:44:20 am --- --- Quote from: imo on August 28, 2021, 11:01:39 am --- --- Quote from: Pinkus on August 28, 2021, 10:09:08 am ---.. Biggest mistake a company can make: show an "i don't care of you" attitude to a customer. --- End quote --- In real life you should try to distinguish between an "one man show" company and a company like KS with billions $ revenue and xxx thousands of industrial customers.. The number of people who are able to repair your rig is extremely limited in those large corporations (I worked in 3 such corporations). They have always a hard time to provide such a support to their existing industrial customer base. Their large customers usually buy a large number of goods - that generates enough revenue to cover warranty repairs. Therefore their employees are requested to provide such answers to somebody who does not fit into their actual business model. A repair of a gear is a fully different task than a production of that gear. Real costs of a 34470 repair might easily be higher than costs of production of the 34470 box itself. --- End quote --- In HP the normal practice was to go out of their way to help customers even when they didn't have to. I remember two occasions when an old XY plotter failed just before an exhibition. HP loaned one for the duration of the exhibition. That kind of attitude enabled HP to grow over the decades. That kind of attitude was normal - and I know since I subsequently worked very happily in HP for over a decade. I only left when princess Carly dissolved the "HP Way" and Agilent split off. And that, mesdames et messieurs, is why so many people feel so bitter about and let down by this new corporate attitude. --- End quote --- To make things more funny, it seems it more likely today to get that kind of attention from Rigol, Siglent, Micsig, Picoscope than from people that built their reputation on that kind of attitude. --- End quote --- Possibly, but I have no experience so any comments would be worthless. I do know that HP built stuff that "met the spec" with no surprises. I've heard tales the other companies aren't quite as good in that respect. There's a famous "Bill and Dave" story that illustrated that. Under time pressure, the first version of the HP2000 minicomputers was released too early, and customers complained. When Packard heard about it he left a memo on the Paul Ely's desk (the project manager) saying "Please ensure we do not release products until they meet the advertised specifications". That was, in HP terms, one hell of a rebuke. It illustrates HP's ethos that Ely framed the memo and hung it on the wall - and went on to have an excellent career in HP. |
| Antonio90:
It becomes clear that Keysight is completely out of the hobbyist market. Without service manuals, available parts nor any kind of repair or support, if your unit breaks after warranty it becomes a paperweight. I bet there are very few hobbyists willing to spend the kind of money they ask, even for their entry level DSOX1204 for 2 or 3 years of use, with no possibility of repair whatsoever after that. But, if they really want out of our market, I'm, honestly, not surprised that they don't provide support to individual customers, even if they don't sell to us at all. The consumer laws in Europe are rather protective towards the private buyer. And, as was previously stated, It means agreeing to potentially unfavourable terms, which include a fixed warranty time and the seller's burden of the proof in proving the cause of failure, amongst other things. On top of that, us amateurs and hobyists are most likely to break our equipment due to improper use and lack of knowledge. The laws are also going to get tighter for the sellers and manufacturers, so they might be trying to move fast to avoid having to cope with unnegotiated terms and conditions which apply to every private customer, irrespective of what they are buying, how much they are spending, or whether they know or not how to use their equipment. Besides that, having a registered VAT number, a small company or whatever, is generally painles in most european countries, and doesn't stand as an unreasonable requisite to me. Here in Spain I just have my own ID number as my registered VAT number. A company is also really cheap and fast now. The point is, I guess, that they just have a general policy within Europe, which is mostly reasonable and a pretty logical choice, but happens to create a lot of problems with the UK legal system, which is not surprising. There are a lot of problems trying to integrate and/or translate regulations, rights, certifications and all kind of legal concepts from the rest of Europe to the English Common Law. The logical solution would be to change the laws on the UK to make small companies viable, or for Keysight to have a system to differentiate businesses from amateurs irrespective of them legally being a company or not. There was another point made in the thread before, which was something like "why woul I have to cope with minimum warranty as a company when I can have a longer warranty due to consumer protection regulations?". That is exactly the point I guess. You can get the compulsory legal warranty as a consumer (and they might not want to play with those rules in the consumer market), or the variable proffesional warranty offered by the manufacturer, which will really depend on your position to negotiate with them. |
| AVGresponding:
--- Quote from: imo on August 28, 2021, 11:01:39 am --- --- Quote from: Pinkus on August 28, 2021, 10:09:08 am ---.. Biggest mistake a company can make: show an "i don't care of you" attitude to a customer. --- End quote --- In real life you should try to distinguish between an "one man show" company and a company like KS with billions $ revenue and xxx thousands of industrial customers.. The number of people who are able to repair your rig is extremely limited in those large corporations (I worked in 3 such corporations). They have always a hard time to provide such a support to their existing industrial customer base. Their large customers usually buy a large number of goods - that generates enough revenue to cover warranty repairs. Therefore their employees are requested to provide such answers to somebody who does not fit into their actual business model. A repair of a gear is a fully different task than a production of that gear. Real costs of a 34470 repair might easily be higher than costs of production of the 34470 box itself. --- End quote --- This misses the point, pretty much completely. Keysight are refusing point blank to even quote for a repair (I question whether a repair can genuinely cost more than a replacement in any realistic situation), and refusing to even calibrate an instrument (in a more or less parallel thread). Cost is irrelevant; they are simply refusing to engage with "non-business" customers, and only in the UK. They are apparently happy to continue to deal with non-business customers elsewhere in the world, unless I missed another thread like this. The date of the change and the region it applies to seem to point pretty much directly at it being some sort of Brexit consequence. |
| bd139:
--- Quote from: Antonio90 on August 28, 2021, 03:10:52 pm ---On top of that, us amateurs and hobyists are most likely to break our equipment due to improper use and lack of knowledge. --- End quote --- Couple of problems with that statement. Firstly some of us are or were professionals that happen to just be doing something else now. And secondly "professionals" are definitely on par with blowing equipment up. I have seen a couple of things turned to charcoal in a lab environment. Also on principle, why should a business have a different warranty to a consumer? What is the objective of the consumer protection? Well simply put it's supposed to reduce the cost impact of buying something that fails quickly and secondly to reduce the environmental impact of short life equipment. Should those not be business objectives? The end game is the consumer pays anyway as the responsibility gets pushed up to the nest of businesses which have to lump their equipment costs into the sales cost. |
| tggzzz:
--- Quote from: Antonio90 on August 28, 2021, 03:10:52 pm ---It becomes clear that Keysight is completely out of the hobbyist market. --- End quote --- HP/Agilent/Keysight test equipment was never in the hobbyist market! It is too high end and too expensive. That's not the point. The point is they have changed their policy about equipment you already bought on the understanding you would be able to have them service it. --- Quote ---On top of that, us amateurs and hobyists are most likely to break our equipment due to improper use and lack of knowledge. --- End quote --- I've broken things while working as an electronic engineer; embarassing! I've had things break while working as an electronic engineer; irritating. |
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