Ultraviolet,
I totally agree.
With the SC series cameras costing between $85K and $145K in 2008 I suspect a healthy chunk of the price covers the after sales support costs associated with such equipment. After sales support staff can be an expensive investment after all. I have normally had great support experiences with FLIR. The only time they let me down was with a faulty FLIR One G2. I returned it as requested and heard no more. I complained to the VP (Bill) covering that area of FLIRs business and he stepped in and sorted the situation immediately. Along with a profuse apology he refunded the full cost of the camera as well as providing the replacement ! Excellent customer focus
I normally dealt with FLIR’s professional thermography division and with cameras in that sector being more specialist and costly, you tended to deal with very customer focussed and knowledgeable support staff. Just like I am currently with the SC4000 support call. There is an argument that such support is due to a customer who paid a lot of money for a product ...... just think of the car industry though...... after sales support can be very patchy, even with brands like BMW and Audi (I speak from experience!). I personally find FLIR to be very helpful in time of need so long as you are honest with them and can comply with the basic requirements for support. They will normally want a serial number in order to check an equipments ownership and history. If you are not the original purchaser of the equipment you can experience difficulties and they can decline to help. This often relates to the Dual Use technology status of the equipment and their lack of knowledge of who they are being asked to help. The Dual Use technology regulations cover the equipment, technical documentation and support.
If is only right to balance the above praise with some facts of life when dealing with large companies and/or specialist equipment though.......
I used to maintain Racal HF transmitters that cost a small fortune. Spare parts were eye wateringly expensive. An older engineer and my mentor explained to me that if a single 5 pence screw were needed for one of the transmitters, Racal would likely charge £10 for it. The reason is overheads..... the screw cost 5p and is nothing special, but it has been bought in by Racals purchasing department, placed in a spares box on a spare parts shelf in the spares holding facility on a site that has building management and staff to administer it. Added to that the part I order has to be picked by someone, packaged, shipped and billed to me. All of the above have costs associated with them and someone has to cover those costs. The screw I ordered would likely cost me 10p with 100% markup applied but the £9.90 would be the overheads for holding and processing that screw as a spare part. Someone has to pay, and in the case of a spare part, it is the requisitioner. Granted, there is likely a “management” fee added to the order as well and that often equates to pure profit, but such is life.
The other story I read recently that amused me was as follows.....
A women joins two friends for a chat in a coffee shop. The two friends order coffee but the lady orders just tap water with ice and a slice of lemon. When the bill arrives there is a charge of £2.50 for the water (London prices !). The lady is outraged at being charged for “just tap water” as it is “free” and demands to speak to the manager. He arrives and the lady demands that the £2.50 is removed from the bill. The manager declines and explains why.....
“You are my customer, you have enjoyed the fasciities of my premises whilst meeting your friends, you have ordered tap water with ice and lemon. That order did not come at no cost to my business. The staff who served you have to be paid for their time, a part of which they spent with you.The water is free but the ice comes from an ice maker that has to be paid for and maintained, the lemon was freshly cut by the staff which takes time and was placed in a glass which has to be cleaned by staff after you have finished with it. The water is free. The coffee shop premises, staff’s time, ice and lemon are not. “
The lady sheepishly paid the bill.
Now you know why you pay more to “eat in” rather than take away..... overheads can be significant.
Very little in life is free so if a customer wants the cheapest possible prices, some things can suffer. Aftersales support is one such possible loss as it does not always influence the original sale and is a hidden cost that customers often do not consider. In a gambling world the seller may offer reduced costs in order to gain sales and hope that little, if any support is requested. The customer only finds out about the effect of cost cutting later when support is requested and found to be either absent or of poor quality. As Ultraviolet says, you often get what you pay for.
Now back to FLIR and my SC4000..... FLIR have every right to decline my request for “support”. They have received no payment from me in the form of original purchase or a support contract. They are effectively spending their time helping me out of goodwill and a wish to maintain their good reputation as a quality provider of advanced thermal imaging equipment. They could still have declined to help me though and I would truthfully have little reason to criticise them.... remember the coffee shop scenario.... nothing is truly free where service or support is involved.
When I first heard that FLIR was entering the consumer thermal camera market I had concerns for them as a company. Other companies that made the same move have quickly regretted it as there is often a massive difference between selling products to professional institutions, Industry and the general public (consumers). Most notably, the public tend to want cheap prices, something for nothing and still get gold standard after sales support. That is just how life is in the consumer age. The companies that venture into the consumer marketplace often experience an exponential increase in after sales support calls, duration of support calls and criticism ! Not great for business. DATONG were a company I worked with who eventually decided the overheands of supporting consumer products were so excessive compared to their sales to industry that they pulled the plug on all of their consumer products in order to concentrate on just the Industrial products and sales. I feared that FLIR could experience the same issues...... and they did !
FLIR tried to be smart in how they entered the consumer market place. They created a whole new division of their company that was based in Europe. That division was responsible for consumer product sales and support. This would leave the Industrial divisions of FLIR to continue to focus on their established customer base that FLIR traditionally support. The new Consumer division of FLIR began selling their new products that included the FLIR One G2 and other Lepton based equipment. There were teething troubles with some products as is to be expected. It was now that FLIR’s brand new Consumer Support team were tested....... and there were some problems with the quality of support provided. Again this was to be expected as the Consumer support team in Europe were new to the job, having been recruited from outside FLIR. It is very easy for a companies support reputation to become tarnished, especially in this modern age of social media. I feared this might happen to FLIR but they are a very robust company and appear to have weathered the storm well. Having spoken to the VP of the European operations I know that, as a long term employee of FLIR, he intended to install the high operating and support standards into the new European branch of operations. He was horrified by my experience with the F1G2 failure and resulting poor customer support. Because of this, and other negative reports coming onto his desk, he flew from the USA to the European branch for some serious discussions about their operation and performance. During those meetings he tasked the support team with sending me a brand new FLIR One G2 immediately and charge it to FLIR’s internal account. He advised me of this action whilst still at the European Division.
As stated He also refunded me the full cost of the F1G2.
We are a ways down the line since FLIR entered the Consumer market and I still feel it was a risky move on their part. They appear to be coping but I still have some serious doubts about some of their Lepton based products. They are built down to a price in order to meet consumer price expectations, and IMHO, it shows
Fraser