Room for improvement on customer service

No chance to get it for sure. Our Malaysian plane that is missing is probably there as well.

sure James. Dont get me wrong. I just a need response.

Prior to the Sprout I’m using Sansui 555a, never fail me other than I had to recap it few years ago as it starting to sounded weak. Equipments nowadays are bit more fragile.

Talking about fridge. My parents still using Kelvinator. A fridge that is older than me. Still cold as the artic.

Personally, having ben an Amazon Reseller, I think all companies should operate as Amazon require their resellers to do.

If the product is faulty, the seller must take it back at their cost and either fix it, replace it or give a full refund. The customer is usually fully satisfied and the sellers go to whatever lengths necessary to avoid having products returned or, if they are returned, the costs are manageable. It encourages manufacturers to make better, more reliable products.

If companies like PSA can ship out, they can ship back. If they can sell at a click, they should process returns at a click. There are some audio companies that work like this, they are largely faceless, you don’t have to explain the problem to 5 people and wait for weeks.

There are consumer protections in place is many countries, certainly the UK and all of the EU. Manufacturers and distributors know the rules, I don’t see why consumers seem to think a faulty product is their problem. It isn’t.

I’ve had the odd issue With Honda and currently with a company called Luxaflex, it’s amazing when making full use of your consumer rights how quickly and cheaply things get fixed.

1 Like

I don’t think equipment these days is more fragile, just a lot is made more cheaply and so is less reliable.

On reason I bought Devialet is because of its incredible reliability. It is mostly made by robots, has exceptional quality control, almost everything is made in-house and the entire unit is then sealed and cannot be opened by the customer. Nothing is user-serviceable. In 12 years I’ve only heard of one fault, a blown IEC socket, which is one of the few third party components. International returns to factory for hardware upgrades are door-to-door arranged by Devialet and take about 2-3 weeks.

If manufacturers make unreliable products, these days they will be found out. It will cost them. Packaging has to be properly designed and most courier companies require double boxing and at least a 2" gap between the product and the box.

If the product does not get the the customer’s home undamaged in full working order, it is the manufacturer’s fault and they should be asking what went wrong.

My son has done packaging design for electronics and I asked him why for a particular product it was so wasteful. He said there was just no other way of ensuring it arrived undamaged.

My experience is that PS A packaging is excellent.

I would have to agree, with reasonable conditions on what allows for an authorized return.

2 Likes

Not audio equipment, but refrigerators- dang, those are now engineered to need replacement after 5-7 years, give or take. No more 25 year refrigerators like the old days referred to above, although not hard to make them that way if they wanted to. Was told this by someone in the know who will go nameless

That is the truth. One of my engineering friends went to work for a world class appliance manufacturer and his primary job was to make a “lifetime” be 5 years of normal daily use instead of the older standard of making it last a literal human lifetime.

Planned obsolescence is now the norm…rather then the exception!

1 Like

I just replaced my kitchen. I had one of the first inductor hobs that lasted 24 years, as did the dishwasher. It stopped working a month before the builders arrived! The oven and microwave lasted 12 years each. The build and finish of the new Miele is astonishingly good.

That said, I got pretty much top of the range induction hob (the one that detects where you put things), oven, microwave/oven, big fridge, freezer, extractor and dishwasher, and the total cost was 15% less than a pair of BHK 300. The fact that one pair of mono blocks costs rather more than 7 state of the art appliances just shows me how ridiculously expensive high-end hifi is compared to other domestic appliances.

I bought a microwave for my office in 2009 and it was still working 3 months ago, even after spending 6 months in the garden. I threw it out because I was just sick of it. it cost me $50 new.

Thank-you for your offer as I will reach out to you Monday. I do find it disappointing that to get any measure of satisfaction I need to bring it up on the PS Audio Forum. This is not the first time.

1 Like

I don’t think that high end hi-fi can be compared to domestic appliances. I don’t see anything remotely comparable between the two.
Kind of like comparing pennies to Krugerrands.

3 Likes

Nowadays we often read the job description „customer success manager“ where this was identified as a priority.

Seems Paul has this task over the forum at PSA :wink:

Usually things like this occur more frequently when there’s no proper process in place, not enough employees available long term or quality problems present long term with too many cases or a mixture. If nothing of that, Covid circumstances shouldn’t let this last long.

Sadly it is not just covid and the variants…but also other
illnesses. Pneumonia, asthma, influenza, tuberculosis any
of these could be affecting operations…

Having experienced pneumonia and asthma…they do
sap human strength…in particular the broncho spasmodic
coughing induce by either of these…

May God bless Paul and the entire PS Audio staff with
recovery…and restore strong healthy operations!!

Best wishes

3 Likes

Amen!

1 Like

I work in a medical center, so I’ve seen sickness and staffing issues across our service lines for over two years now. It’s the new normal, for now. However, I think when PSA went to a direct-to-consumer model, it took out our regular PSA dealer(s) as our front-end support network. In sum, PSA assumed that role in-full. There’s responsibility that comes with that role, and it’s good to see Paul step up and not make excuses for poor service. That said, a kind forum member will have a remote to me by Friday, which I’m very thankful for, as is my wife, while I’m still in limbo with PSA on my remote replacement.

2 Likes

I feel the frustration. My P15 had an initializing error and wouldn’t boot. I had to send it back to PS Audio for repair. It took over 5 weeks to get it back.

1 Like

Hifi is a domestic electrical appliance. It is a manufactured good for consumer use, subject to the same laws and regulations, in relation to the task it is required to perform, safety regulations, consumer credit law etc.

Most countries enact laws to protect the consumer, so that when they pay for a product, it must do what it is stated to do, do it safely and, if not, there are clear lines of responsibility. Those laws don’t exempt certain products because of their cost or complexity. They would apply equally to a pencil sharpener as to a Ferrari.

A cooker arrives in a box or crate, you plug it in and it makes food. A hifi unit arrives in a box or crate, you plug it in and it makes music.

So where’s the difference?

In the numbers of items created and the size of the company that makes the product. A company of twenty doesn’t have the same resources a large multinational company has. Resources like large quality control departments. You will dismiss this of course. Others understand though.

4 Likes