Products > Test Equipment

Keysight officially lost the plot - don't buy if you're a hobbyist

<< < (69/118) > >>

J-R:
Bought some equipment from Keysight's ebay store last year, 30 day warranty.  Well past that 30 days I contacted them and purchased an extended warranty for some of it.  About 6 months after that the unit quit working correctly and I shipped it back.  They weren't able to repair it but shipped me a replacement unit instead.  Consider me a happy Keysight customer.

Kean:

--- Quote from: adauphin on February 20, 2022, 04:21:22 am ---Looking at Newark's site, and a few others, there is NO mention of any of this "business only" garbage.

--- End quote ---

At https://www.newark.com/terms-and-conditions there is a pretty common clause...

--- Quote ---2. BUSINESS CUSTOMERS:

The Company is a business-to-business supplier. Its catalog and any specialogs and other product brochures produced by the Company are intended for use by business customers and not consumers. By ordering, the Customer represents and warrants that Customer is acquiring the products on behalf of a business and not as a consumer.
--- End quote ---

Strangely though, their website user registration has a drop down option for "*Which of the following best describes your job role?" of "Home / Personal / Hobbyist".

mendip_discovery:
I wondered if the move was becuase for the amount if new gear hobbyist buy there is a significant number of support tickets as we need to be honest here, if we take the general hobbyist here as an example then we can assume they are some of the most nitpicky, pedantic and inquisitive users around aka annoying. This vs a firm where they get mostly the sales twerp asking dumb questions that can be solved with a cheap call centre and a basic FAQ and they will happily take the "send it back to us for servicing" line. A much easier life and less drain on the company resources. I also suspect that sales of new gear is dropping partly as the old gear is still so good and is lasting longer.

I have witnessed companies fail becuase of the open nature the owner and the staff had with the customers even if it was 4am. This meant when something broke they would be pestered to fix it. Even worse is they had hundreds of users just clicking refresh every 10s to see when it would come back up. So the engineers had to shy away from being so public.

adauphin:

--- Quote from: Kean on February 20, 2022, 08:12:46 am ---
--- Quote from: adauphin on February 20, 2022, 04:21:22 am ---Looking at Newark's site, and a few others, there is NO mention of any of this "business only" garbage.

--- End quote ---

At https://www.newark.com/terms-and-conditions there is a pretty common clause...

--- Quote ---2. BUSINESS CUSTOMERS:

The Company is a business-to-business supplier. Its catalog and any specialogs and other product brochures produced by the Company are intended for use by business customers and not consumers. By ordering, the Customer represents and warrants that Customer is acquiring the products on behalf of a business and not as a consumer.
--- End quote ---

Strangely though, their website user registration has a drop down option for "*Which of the following best describes your job role?" of "Home / Personal / Hobbyist".

--- End quote ---


Not to sound rude, but can you show me where I can add this to my cart, proceed to checkout, and be made aware I have to use this for a business to gain customer support?

What a piece of garbage company if they refuse support to a customer that uses their equipment in their home for "non-business" use.

Not towards Newark, but Keysight.


https://www.newark.com/keysight-technologies/e36312a/dc-power-supply-3o-p-6v-5a-prog/dp/15AC9655

tv84:
(Disclaimer: I have no Keysight (but could find some desk space if needed) and have no relation with the company.)

Keysight only says it won't be providing DIRECT support to a personal end-user.

They will continue to provide support to any user as long it comes via a VAT registered company  :blah:

So, people only have to buy things from their distributors, national representatives, etc. and all will be "business as usual".
Nobody has to starting creating VAT companies all over the place... The companies already exist.

I understand that many (and mostly) US guys are accustomed to buy all types of devices all over the place and always have the support of the manufacturer (specially the US manufacturers). But where I live, and I think in many other places, we haven't been so "lucky" and had, almost always, to go through the sales house where we bought the thing in order to obtain manufacturer support. So, what they are doing now doesn't surprise me or at least doesn't shock me (sorry guys, but I grew up without those privileges and, as such, had to "adopt, adapt and improve").

I expect that through TEquipment, Newark, and the likes, all hobbysts (private individuals) will continue to get the full Keysight support but these sales companies will also have to do a little more for their customers and ensure that they support them down the line and in front of  the manufacturer (let's say in other words: to justify their margins). From now on, these companies will not be in a "fire and forget" mode where they make any Keysight sale, from any stock, and stay comfortable that should any problem arise the customer will deal directly with the manufacturer! Now they will be the middleman (as they should).

Can be worse for the customer? Yes, it can but it also empowers some businesses to strength the relation with their customers and, of course, if the Keysight starts to have a bad support for their tickets they may choose to not represent them anymore.

For Keysight, as @mendip_discovery perfectly described, the tickets should be more filtered and avoid the persistent and annoying ones. Also, Keysight also gets the option of not providing equipment to a certain sales representative that doesn't follow certain rules (that provides adequate support to their customers or that doesn't filter simple complaints, etc.).  And this is a perfectly understandable goal.

Direct sales between end users (eBay, EEVblog, etc...) get a hit. Yes they do but that's the price of having a Keysight with support.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod