K700i nighmare: continues



So, if you're one of the K700i owners with a phone that has Bluetooth with an attitude then this story might be of some interest to you. If you're with Sony Ericsson, in their "customer service" department, then the story might be of interest to you. If you're me, then you have very few warm feelings for either Sony Ericsson or for the K700i. Both let me down big.

I bought my first Sony product when I was little. I still remember when I first saw the Walkman at an electronics store in Boulder. Holy crap, looking back it's hard to believe that I ever got that excited over a tape player. But as we all know, the Walkman was bigger than the iPod. Portable music before the Walkman was limited to small radios. The idea that we could go skiing with music of our own choosing was crazy, and we all wanted one.

Fast forward about 30 years and you find me with a completely different opinion of Sony and their products. Actually, my once near flawless experiences with Sony ended about 5-10 years ago. Somewhere in there they decided that they'd skimp on quality and then on ID. Once a 100% Sony buyer, I became a reluctant Sony customer. That's a 180 turn. I didn't shun Sony, I just looked at their products with a lot more scrutiny than had ever done in the past, and where I once bought everything Sony, I now looked around a lot before making a decision.

Even at that turning point, I'd yet to ever deal with Sony directly. Most of my stuff wasn't mission critical. But my mobile phone? Hell yeah, I need that thing to work. I run my business through my phone and my personal life. So that's where this story began. My direct dealings with Sony.

(If you're thinking I'm wasting my time whining about my K700i and Sony Ericsson, I would agree with you. Sort of. But when you consider how much effort is going into getting new customers, you have to wonder why companies aren't putting equal effort into keeping them. Sponsored Influencers, Buzz Agents, etc, they all cost companies tons of cash-you should learn about how SE themselves have used agents to promote their T68i in NYC-and so do unhappy customers.)

My K700i is my fifth Sony phone. I was buying Sony mobiles before they partnered with Ericsson. The K700i was the first and only phone I've ever had any trouble with (before Sony phones, I was buying Audiovox). When my two K700i's arrived in September I fully expected to enjoy them as much or more (this is an expensive phone: I better like it more) than any phone I'd owned previously. Little was I to know that not only was I going to hate the product, I would end up hating Sony and, to make matters worse, I'd have to shell out $200 out of my own pocket to ensure that I received some customer care.

Out of the box my phone worked perfectly. I really liked it a lot. Then my wife started to ask why her BT headset kept disconnecting. I figured that since this was her first phone with BT, she might need a primmer on how to use it. Turns out I was wrong. We swapped phones after about a week and, true enough, I ended up having the exact same problems.

The issue was with the K700i's ability to hold a Bluetooth connection. It would find most devices but it wouldn't hold on to it. With a BT headset, it would pair well but if the phone received an incoming call it would disconnect from the headset. After the call ended the K700i would find the headset again. Aggravating to say the least. Flat out dangerous if you're pregnant and trying to figure out where to take a call while driving in traffic.

After having the phone at the office I tested five other BT devices with both phones. All devices worked perfectly with the "working" K700i, none worked with the "broken" K700i. Devices would pair with the broken phone but they wouldn't hold the connection. In fact, it was so bad with the headset that the K700i would lose then reconnect with the headset several times a minute.

At that point I rang Sony. They said that it could be a bad battery. They'd send me a new one. Fine. While I waited for the battery replacement, I tested the battery from the working phone. No fixy. It was at THIS VERY MOMENT that I should have contacted my retailer where I bought the phones and requested an exchange. But I took Sony's word. . .and, oh, how I've paid dearly. That's because after the battery arrived and, naturally, it didn't solve my problem, my phone was past the return period with the retailer.

So there I was, stuck with a $400 phone that was essentially worthless. I had to work with Sony to fix the issue because they were the only party accountable at this point.

After hitting Google I learned that Sony posted a web-based firmware update for the K700i. Very nice. Wouldn't that be keen if flashing my phone would fix it? As it happened, Sony customer service suggested I do just that after calling to tell them the replacement battery didn't do jack. But that was after they suggested I send the phone in for two weeks to have it fixed. Sorry, brand-new-broken-out-of-the-box-K700i-owner don't play that. I wasn't sending in my two week old phone for as many weeks. Nuhuh.

That's when I did what any customer would do. I asked for Sony to send me the DSS-25 that was required to update the firmware. Hell, the phone was broken out of the box. Why should I suffer downtime because the phone wasn't tested thoroughly? Well, I was about to be punished. And how. Sony wouldn't send me a DSS-25. Furthermore, if I opened the DSS-25 I couldn't return it. What if the firmware update doesn't fix my phone? Sorry, I was told, if it's open we can't accept it as a return.

What'd I do? I'm a glutton for punishment, so I ordered a DSS-25 at $60 and hoped for the best.

Two weeks later I sat at my Powerbook and spent about three hours troubleshooting the Sony site's K700i software update page. I wasn't pissed at Sony that VPC on a Mac wouldn't play nice with their site, but it was more time down the drain. Eventually I learned from a K700i messageboard that the combination of VPC, Explorer and Sony's site didn't play well. I needed to try Opera. Did just that and finally got my K700i flashed.

As I pulled the phone off the sync station something in my gut told me that my story was far from over. Indeed. The BT headset stayed connected to my K700i for about twenty minutes. Then, out of nowhere, the cycle of connection and disconnection began with a flurry. Wonderful. Sony, here I come.

The next morning I called Sony and, feeling defeated, I agreed to send in my phone. That Sony only has one service center in the US is certainly a cost saver for the company, but it's inconvenient as hell for its customers. And to make matters worse, they seem to have no idea that their phones are critical to their customer's lives. The fact that they don't send out a special box with return label (addressed to the service center) is one indication. The other is that it can take five days in the center before a technician will pick up the phone. Then add the repair time and then the time to return the phone to the customer. Two weeks is the estimate. That's a colossal waste of time. That it's 2004 and a mobile communication business is still on this sort of a schedule is lunacy.

I need my phone for business; my busy season is October through January. I figured if all went well I'd have my phone back by early October at the latest. To help ensure that this happened, I overnighted the phone to Sony at the cost of about $25. But before I did, I asked the Sony rep to go over my account notes to make sure they had the issue spelled out completely, and I enclosed a short letter with the phone explaining the issue. Then off it went.

Two weeks later I found the phone at my backdoor. It was a long wait. I'd pissed away 50% of my T-Mobile billing cycle, or another $40. Let's take a break and tally all this up:

K700i: $400
DSS-25: $60
Shipping: $25
Cell bill downtime: $40

That's a chunk of change, huh. Cripes, I've had junk mobile phones (my Sony 1201) that didn't have a single issue in the two or three years I used it, and my T68i had more functionality at that point. What was I thinking?

So, I pulled the K700i from the FedEx bag and popped in the battery. Let it charge overnight and connected my BT headset. Then I waited. Nothing. Good!, I thought. No problems, that's great. But then it happened: I received a call. As I reached up to my ear to accept the call I noticed that the K700i had dropped the headset. FSCK. Well, I should have told you that there was an enclosure in with the phone. It was from Sony and it said that they couldn't duplicate the issue I was having with Bluetooth. This despite the fact that I included a description of the issue, that the account notes described the issue, and, at this point, the problem was being discussed on the web (I wasn't the only one with the problem). I even included my phone number should the tech not be able to duplicate the issue. I did that, seriously: this duplication problem is common with car dealerships and Apple Geniuses, so why not with Sony Ericsson? Well, it didn't work because no one called me.

I promptly rang Sony. I was not happy at this point. I asked for a supervisor. He's busy, I was told. He'll call you back within 24-48 hours. Huh? Give me any supervisor on the floor. Same response. So I waited. Turns out I waited about six days. Then I called back and asked for the supervisor who was supposed to call me back. He wasn't in, but he'd call me in two hours. Four hours later I rang and explained that I needed to get this problem solved while I was on the phone: I wasn't going to wait any longer. The rep told me that the supervisor I needed to speak with was in the building but he couldn't take the call from the rep's line: he'd have to call me from his office, and he'd do it immediately.

And so I waited. Another couple of hours. Then I called back. That time "Andrew" could take my call. At this point I was beyond pissed off. I could not believe the lack of a sense of urgency around that office. I get better service from toll collectors.

After going over my entire K700i history for about the tenth time (every time I called Sony they needed to hear the story from the top) the supervisor did nothing for me. Send it in again, he told me. Andrew has got an unbelievable knack for sounding disinterested in your problem as a customer. It was no surprise to me, then, that after being pressed, the "only thing" Sony could do for me was to suggest I send in the phone.

I had just sent it in! There had to be something else they could do. In fact, I'd be willing to pay for better service. Again, I was told to send it in. That was my only option. Fsck that. I asked for his supervisor or manager. He reasserted my options. Nothing else could happen he promised.

Andrew also promised that the second time around I'd have my phone sent directly to a special technician within the facility who was tasked with turning phones around the second time. That my turn around would only be five days in total this time. Somehow I didn't believe him. Why the hell should I? First it was the battery that was going to solve the BT issue. Then it was the DSS-25, then sending the phone in for service would fix my K700i. Call me a cynic, but I had lost faith in Sony Ericsson at that point.

Now, I had to chase this guy down over about a week. Why should I believe anything he had to say? Well, for one thing, I was sitting on a broken $400 phone, and I'd already spilled about $125 of my own money trying to service the phone myself. What the hell was I supposed to do?

I asked Andrew to look at a calendar. We agreed on a date upon which the phone would be returned and I told him I'd hold him accountable. More detachment. Despite this, I boxed up the phone once again and took it to FedEx on my daily run. Off it went. . .again.

At this point nothing would surprise me. Nothing. So when I called in to check up on the phone four business days later, I was told that Sony never received it. Andrew wasn't in (surprise!), and he was the only supervisor authorized to comment on my case. Huh? What about his supervisor? Sorry, Andrew will be in tomorrow. I asked that Andrew call me back, but he didn't. When I finally reached him the next day he told me that the phone was in fact in the service center and that it would be looked at the following day. What about the five day turn around, I asked? More excuses.

Three days later I called to find out where my phone was and Andrew said that they were sending it out the next day. Right ;-), sure you were, I thought. Three days later, that was yesterday, I finally got my phone back. WTH, is this any way to treat a customer? I say it's not.

So far so good with the replacement phone. It's been about 24-hours and it's working. But I have to say that Sony really dropped the ball, in many ways, in fact. First, their customer service department needs some training. Accountability is lacking, and so is communication within that department. I should be able to get customer service from any supervisor on duty, not be asked to call back the following day to speak with the "only supervisor authorized" to work on my case. Silly to say the least.

Sony also needs to revise the way they handle repairs. I told Sony as much twice during this fiasco. I suggested that Sony send a repair packet that included a box, return label, and a SIM-ready phone that the customer could use while theirs was being fixed. I suggested that they either build this service into their phone prices or they charge a fee after a certain period of time, like once the phone is 90-days or older.

Sure, I've got a T68i, but the fscking thing is locked to AT$T and neither Sony nor AT&T will unlock it. That phone is worthless since I'm now on T-Mobile.

I also suggested that they call their customers back when they promise to do so, but given that it has happened to me so many times, I don't think Sony is listening. No, in fact I know they're not.

I know this because when my phone arrived yesterday it did so without the grippy little Quickshare logo sticker at the bottom of the phone. That's a small detail, but I used it to hold onto the phone when dialing, so I called Sony to say that I had received my phone but without the grippy sticker. When I asked them to send me one I was told, after holding for five minutes, that the supervisor told the rep that the service center was closed: could I call tomorrow and ask for the Quickshare label then?

Huh? What's wrong with writing down my request on a piece of paper and handing it over to someone like Andrew the following day? Is that too much to ask for? Maybe so, but stuff like this is at the very root of the Sony Ericsson's customer service problems.

There's a whole lot more to this story. More wasted time, more expense, and more horrible customer service on behalf of Sony Ericsson, I just had to summarize the experience. My hope is that as mobile phones become more and more of a commodity (this will happen when makers put SIM card access somewhere that we can get to them without having to pull the phone apart) companies like Sony will discover that they HAVE to give a shit about their customers.

As for me, I'll get over this mess. It would help if my K700i behaves. . . .

Pece

Posted: Wed - December 22, 2004 at 02:13 PM          

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