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Nikon really have ZERO interest in customer service

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I have previously called the service center in NSW, and spoken to someone about remapping a single camera. They gave the essentially the same response. I'd think email would carry more weight, as it can be forwarded up the chain if the responder has the power to do so. So in truth this was my second attempt (though my first at asking for bulk discount or expedited service). I don't see the point in repeatedly pestering some overworked tech. If I want to take this further I'd have to start writing up the chain at Nikon Australia.

One voice in private is less likely to be listened to. I may have more of their DSLRs than the average Nikon user, but they are consumer kit and all my cameras combined aren't worth the same as one D4.
 
Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef wrote:
I have previously called the service center in NSW, and spoken to someone about remapping a single camera. They gave the essentially the same response. I'd think email would carry more weight, as it can be forwarded up the chain if the responder has the power to do so. So in truth this was my second attempt (though my first at asking for bulk discount or expedited service). I don't see the point in repeatedly pestering some overworked tech. If I want to take this further I'd have to start writing up the chain at Nikon Australia.
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One voice in private is less likely to be listened to. I may have more of their DSLRs than the average Nikon user, but they are consumer kit and all my cameras combined aren't worth the same as one D4.

I was more thinking if you were outside of NSW.

Inside NSW you talking to people from the same company and are likely to get the same mandated responses.
 
Without reading through this entire thread, I wish to tell of a quite opposite treatment I received here in California from Nikon. You do know that each Nikon entity in the world is a distinct corporation. Usually country by country. (this may have been mentioned)

I hear grumbling in America. Actually, a lot of grumbling on forums.

I acquired an array of DX equipment last April. Having been away from photography for 20+ years. I used to shoot professionally for several large news and magazine companies. Including in Tokyo. Nikon has always been my brand. And the face to face contact I had in Japan was at a high professional level. The one outside brand I owned was a Minolta Maxxim. That was a mistake.

The complaints I hear on these shores are about prices. Another form is about service.

The Nikon USA corp has 2 service centers in North America. One in rural New York. The other moved to California, and then moved again.This time with 10 miles of my home. I have been there to check on my D7000. About the battery and battery drain. It is under warranty for another two months. I was pleasantly surprised at how friendly the people were at the service counter. And they researched the problem in 2 days and summoned me back by email. Before I left the gave me a part for free. I asked to buy the part, but the said they don't sell parts. New part in hand, they sent me on my way.

On trip #3, I dropped off a lens that I broke by fiddling with it. It is a 2-year old lens. The sent me a service advisory and informed that there will be no charge. Even though it is well beyond the warantee.

So, how is that for service?
 
bravozulu said:
bravozulu wrote:

So, how is that for service?
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That is fantastic service. Wish I could get that from ANY camera company here. I would quickly become a fan.

Usually the people working at the service center can't bend the rules too much. It does not surprise me that there are nice technicians and customer service staff out there. I would never take my frustrations out on a person that was clearly doing their best for me.

However I have completely withdrawn my business from various companies when I have been treated particularly badly. Very recently I had to return a $25 card reader to a small (4 store) chain of computer stores. Instead of accepting the return at the local store, they insisted they couldn't do returns from the other store and sent me to the store I bought it from - which meant I had to take a long lunch and drive about 20km in peak hour traffic. I have bought my last 3 desktop computers from this store, and they are not low end systems. They were aware of this, but still gave me the run around. When I got to the store I bought the card reader from I got told that they were able to do the return and asked who'd given me that misinformation, and that they were probably just too lazy to process the return (they were not at all busy by the way). Well if you continually treat your customers like that they eventually don't come back. I won't be returning to that store. If my hour and a half, and petrol isn't worth 5 minutes of processing a return, I'll find someone better. They were never the cheapest store but at one time I use to be able to get fantastic service there.
 
Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef wrote:
**************
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Sent the message below to Nikon Australia through their web form.

They didn't answer the question - in fact the reply suggests a form letter and that their representative didn't take the time to even read it properly. They can't give an accurate quote for a simple sensor remapping. And for that matter they can't spell "hello".

Oh yeah I want to pay 1.5x as much for warranty from this bunch.

It just irks me. There is no way I'm spending between $330 and $480 (I can't even tell you how much!0 for probably 15 minutes worth of work remapping 3 cameras. Especially since hot pixels will come back. Nor will I be in a rush to buy another camera which I know will also develop hot pixels.

So Nikon will NEVER see a cent from me on this. What they have ensured is that their cameras are a pain to work with. I shoot RAW mostly, and this discourages me from attempting to shoot action in JPG given the amount of extra post processing I'd have to do. It's just maddening. Why do companies make their products like this? On the odd chance that someone's going to send a camera for cleaning every few months or buy a brand new camera rather than just live with the issue? Really? That makes economic sense? Your business plan is to waste your customer's time and/or have your customers produce substandard output? And you wonder why people are abandoning DSLR and going with mobile phones instead?

It took years to get on camera sensor cleaning. Nikon 1 already has in camera pixel mapping. How many more generations before they stop playing these silly games and give us decent mapping in the more expensive line.

**************

Message sent

**************

Hi, Between us my wife and I own several Nikon DSLRs. We are not professionals and have never done paid work. We have 3 D90 cameras that are showing bright pixels at various ISO. which are starting to get annoying. We shoot RAW so software like Pixel Fixer does the job, but it is time consuming and annoying. What would be the cost to have them remapped? We do not need any other work done on the cameras. Would it be possible to make an appointment and have them remapped while one of us waits? I would prefer this to either sending them in one at a time, or sending away all the cameras in one hit. I'm hoping we can work out a reasonable arrangement (price and time wise). Thanks,
Sammy

**************
Reply
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Hallo Sammy, Thank you for your email. Please send the unit to us for a remap of the sensor. Approximate cost is about $100.00 - $150.00 + $9.90 return freight and may take up to 1 week for the remapping to be done. this could be done sooner if the technicians do not have much on the current repair queue. Regards
Regards [Name removed]

Customer Service Representative

NIKON AUSTRALIA PTY LTD
Seems to me you have an unrealistic idea of the costs and complexities involved to run ANY business let alone a repair center for a precision tool that has to be fixed by trained professionals.

Consider the over head involved in the pay, benefits, training, ect for every employee necessary to operate the repairs department. Not to mention the cost of the machines and dont' forget buildings need utilities and someone to clean them. Plus the risk of making a mistake that destroys a camera that Nikon has to pay for. All of theses liabilities and potential liabilities plus ones I haven't thought of are factored into Nikon's repair prices. The repair center literally costs Nikon hundreds of thousands of dollars a year just to stay open. I haven't even stated talking about the actual cost of receiving your camera, inspecting and function checking it, cleaning it as necessary, remapping the pixels, checking the work, function checking the rest of the camera again, Shipping it back and communicating with you the whole time. I bet a "simple" remap takes at least an hour per camera. If Nikon charged any less they would probably lose money fixing your camera.
 
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Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef wrote:
Sammy Yousef said:
Chaz57 wrote:

Nothing is free in this world, seems you're just finding this out,
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I didn't pay for that rather condescending line.
Sammy Yousef said:
if you take the camera to a shop it may be cheaper but there would still be a fee to determine the problem which would be applied to the total repair fee if you chose to have them fix it and if you choose to not have them repair it you would still have to pay the diagonistic fee.
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This should be a user function. For years the same was said about sensor cleaning.
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Maybe it should but it isn't
Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef said:
I've had several experiences with Nikon Service and never had a problem, handled promptly and professionally. It was or wasn't covered by warranty and if not here is what it cost to fix it.
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Good for you. I had no such experience though, so that helps me not at all. I've described my experiences elsewhere in this thread, so I won't repeat.
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Sorry to hear that, but actually you are experiencing that now, it's not warranty, here is what it will cost to fix. You are choosing to not have it fixed. Your choice not Nikons so live with YOUR choice


Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef said:
You just don't like what they told you it WILL cost to fix your issue. If you don't like their response then ask politely to speak with a supervisor and if you don't like his response oh well, don't get it repaired.
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I'm not going to waste my time. This is obviously their policy, and it is a rather silly attempt to make money. Few amateurs who know enough about hot pixels to be bothered would pay for this service. Annoying your customers into giving you money seems to make little sense to me.
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Then you can live with the software fix, again YOUR choice


Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef said:
Or you could just go on a rant on a photo forum and look foolish, or ultimately buy a brand that has in camera mapping and maybe you'll be happy
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Foolish? It's foolish to expect a camera not to be a pain in the neck to use after that 1 year warranty runs out? Well aren't you a dream customer.
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You stated the hot pixels can pop up any time so you should have expected this situation would arise sooner or later, you chose to ignore your own knowledge about this issue

Not a dream customer but a realist, it's not under warranty so it is up to me to have it fixed or not and to live with MY choice, or do something about it, fix it or change systems.


Sammy Yousef said:
I've already said this isn't enough to change brands. It's an inconvenience and a nuisance, but Canon resort to similar silliness, and I don't want SLT (ruling out Sony) or to switch to a system which may be on financially shakey ground (Olympus).
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So you are left with Nikon, again another choice YOU are making. I doubt that Nikon sought you out to sell you a camera system other than their normal advertising, so that too was YOUR choice, and again you chose to ignore your own knowledge of this issue and what was involved in resolving it.


Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef said:
But I doubt it.
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I doubt you'll stop calling people foolish or condescendingly telling them what they're just finding out, but them's the breaks.
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Wasn't intending to be condescending but just pointing out these were choices you made on your own. You purchased a system that doesn't offer on-board remapping and now you are annoyed at Nikon for not having it. Like you said them's the breaks...

Take care


 
Josh152 wrote:

> Seems to me you have an unrealistic idea of the costs and complexities involved to run ANY business let alone a repair center for a precision tool that has to be fixed by trained professionals.

This is not some complex repair. It is a matter of hooking up the camera to a computer, taking an image or series of images with lens cap on, and running some software.

> Consider the over head involved in the pay, benefits, training, ect for every employee necessary to operate the repairs department.

> ...etc. etc.

Why I just went through your reasoning and I'm surprised they can service my camera for under $1 million!

Consider that they could have added sensor mapping so that none of that was required. Also consider that they clean sensors for $66 flat.

You wonder why repair is dying and so much labour goes off shore? This is certainly one reason. People's willingness to justify anything. It's not the first hobby or industry this attitude has killed off.
 
I don't choose what Nikon charge.

I will have to live with it.

That does not make it right.

And it certainly doesn't mean I should not complain.
 
Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef wrote:
Sammy Yousef said:
RicohPentax wrote:
Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef wrote:
Sammy Yousef said:
Pixel mapping is an all or nothing process. It does not require one pixel is mapped at a time. (Sensor replacement if there are too many is a different story). You are either quite ignorant of how the pixel mapping process works, or baiting me. (If it's ignorance, you should stick to speaking on topics you do understand). Either way, you picked the wrong day, and I do not have the time nor inclination to counter every misconception you have, or argue against straw men, or put up with your insults.
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Bye.
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Sorry Sammy, but you are the one who seems ignorant of how pixel mapping works.D
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Peter you are both rude and wrong. And no I don't want a complimentary clean of my camera for $150 thanks, nor do I need special repackaging for that price. And no there is no excuse for not being able to give a solid number. A sensor clean would cost $66 flat and entails everything else you said.

In any case I don't want to cost Nikon a cent - I want them to let me do my own remapping.

If you are going to troll, try again.
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Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef wrote:
Sammy Yousef said:
Peter Jonas wrote:

What I can see from the reply is whoever wrote it had read and undertood your (rather poorly worded and unnecessarily long) message in full.
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Every time I speak to you Peter, it's nothing but a list of put downs on your end.
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When the subject is photography I agree with you most of the time, but I may not always publicly say so.

However, when it comes to subjects about commercial matters (such as prices, services, products etc.) I do admit I very often have an opposing point of view to yours. I simply have a different attitude to these matters. So, when I see reason for it, I will present you with my point of view, and the reasons behind it. No big deal.
Sammy Yousef said:
I really am not in the mood tonight, sorry. Go find someone else to troll.
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No trolling intended.


Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef said:
They can't give an accurate quote for a simple sensor remapping.
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How could they? They do not know how many hot pixels there are in any of your three sensors.
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Pixel mapping is an all or nothing process. It does not require one pixel is mapped at a time. (Sensor replacement if there are too many is a different story). You are either quite ignorant of how the pixel mapping process works.
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I do have an idea, but indeed it may be incorrect. How do you know what Nikon's process for pixel mapping is?

But better than arguing about something neither of us 100% certain, why not reply to nikon saying that in your opinion the quoted price is unreasonably high. Could they please explain in some detail what is involved with the pixel mapping so that you may have a greater appreciation of value for that particular service. You may also like to ask them for the reason of not giving you a fixed price, but eather a price range.

I am sure they would reply to you, which might make ala of us smarter.
Sammy Yousef said:
, or baiting me.
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Neither.
Sammy Yousef said:
... and I do not have the time nor inclination to counter every misconception you have, or argue against straw men, or put up with your insults.
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No insult intended and hopefully none made. If you feel so, please let me know so I may rephrase the offending sections.


Sammy Yousef said:
Bye.
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I think your outrage comes not realizing the work required and work that is actually done. You keep saying "15 minutes of work" but clearly that is not the case. They receive it and log into their system, assign a tech. The tech does a QC test to determine the state of the camera and is not going to just take your word for what the total problem is because that opens them up to complaints about problems that they did not test because you did not mention them. The optical path is cleaned. Test jigs are used for standard tests, their computer diagnostic system and the actual remapping if that is in fact all that is needed. Then final QC to verify the work and state of the camera, after that it is cleaned in and out, sealed in plastic and packed for shipping. 3-5 people were involved at one point or another.

You keep claiming that $100 is too much for an older camera and old cheap cameras should be cheaper. Does that make any sense, the same processes are involved no matter how old the unit is or how little its resale value.

The customer service rep who answered you did not send a form letter as you claim, but took 10 minutes to respond to you in a courteous, professional manner, and you say their investment of time and and facilities totals 15 minutes......shhhhee.

If it is too expensive I advise you to do it yourself. Can't do it? Fine, hire a programmer to create the diagnostic and process software, and an engineer to design the jigs, and a machinist to create them, and you are all set to save a $100

--

Stan
St Petersburg Russia
 
If your intention is not to be rude, try not being rude. Your writing speaks for itself. When you tell someone that their message is poorly worded and that they are ignorant while displaying a greater ignorance, that is rude. I refuse to have different flavours of the same conversation with you. When you learn how to argue a point without trying to belittle the person who you disagree with, I'll be happy to have a civilised discussion with you.
 
spbStan said:
spbStan wrote:

You are clearly wrong about your claim of 15 minutes. It shows that you really do not know what you are talking about.

Just cleaning the camera or doing the incoming QC tests each take longer than that.
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I'll say it again for perhaps the 5th time on this thread: I DO NOT WANT MY CAMERAS CLEANED OR ANYTHING ELSE DONE. Nothing else is wrong with these cameras as far as I can tell. I just want the pixels remapped. I could have the sensor cleaned for $66, but remapping hot pixels is apparently so much harder that it may cost 2.5 times as much!
 
spbStan said:
spbStan wrote:

I think your outrage comes not realizing the work required and work that is actually done. You keep saying "15 minutes of work" but clearly that is not the case. They receive it and log into their system, assign a tech.
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...and yet a mechanic can often inspect a car much more quickly.

Sure they'd need to take a picture before and identify hot pixels. THAT IS PART OF THE MAPPING PROCESS.


It costs $66 to clean the sensor. That includes all the logging etc. I do not need or want QC checks. They should do that before they deliver the camera, not after I've had it for years. I do not want it cleaned, and in fact I don't trust them to take the time even at those rates to ensure they don't do more harm than good. See other thread posted today by someone else.
spbStan said:
You keep claiming that $100 is too much for an older camera and old cheap cameras should be cheaper. Does that make any sense, the same processes are involved no matter how old the unit is or how little its resale value.
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No what I keep claiming is that they've taken a process they could put in the user's hands, and decided to make it a economically unviable nightmare. And yep they're overcharging. There is no other way to put it. There is no way a software process requires 1.5-2.5x more time than a sensor cleaning.
spbStan said:
The customer service rep who answered you did not send a form letter as you claim, but took 10 minutes to respond to you in a courteous, professional manner, and you say their investment of time and and facilities totals 15 minutes......shhhhee.
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Looked like a cut and past response with a bit of friendly banter. By your claims I should charge Dpreview about $1200 for the time I've spent on this thread.
spbStan said:
If it is too expensive I advise you to do it yourself. Can't do it? Fine, hire a programmer to create the diagnostic and process software, and an engineer to design the jigs, and a machinist to create them, and you are all set to save a $100
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There's no jig to set up. It's a software process. And by the way Nikon have attempted to encrypt their NEFs so that third parties can't produce software without paying them. I don't doubt you would support that too. Most of the guys who tools like Pixel Fixer, DIYPhotoBits etc. have had to do it from scratch decrypting files, or use a library made by someone else that has. Nikon even discontinued their software development kit.


--
Sammy.
My forum postings reflect my own opinions and not those of my employer. I'm not employed in the photo business.
 
Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef wrote:

If your intention is not to be rude, try not being rude. Your writing speaks for itself. When you tell someone that their message is poorly worded and that they are ignorant while displaying a greater ignorance, that is rude. I refuse to have different flavours of the same conversation with you. When you learn how to argue a point without trying to belittle the person who you disagree with, I'll be happy to have a civilised discussion with you.
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I never said or implied you were ignorant.

I did say your message was poorly worded, which is exactly what I thought (and still do). It was not meant to be rude. I intentionally chose my words carefully in order to avoid being rude. I cannot see how saying "your message is poorly worded" is rude in any way. Yes, it was meant to be critical. But on occasions you may like to give some consideration to your critics.

I also have to say, that very often you are quick to insult people (and/or businesses) or accuse them of sinister intentions or motives. At the same time you demand the greatest of respect and courtessy from others who communicate with you. Remember, as far as respect is concerned, you get what you give.

In any event, if the words "poorly worded" is the only passage in my post you can remember, then indeed, we do not have much to discuss.
 
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Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef wrote:

I don't choose what Nikon charge.

I will have to live with it.

That does not make it right.
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This is certainly true, but just and right have very little bearing on the way things actually are in this world.


Sammy Yousef said:
And it certainly doesn't mean I should not complain.
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And this while true won't change anything

Just don't waste too much time on the complaining or you end up loosing out in the long run, with little or no effect on the entity you are complaining about



And I get the feeling your fervor for the jousting is as strong as your heart in the complaint

let the games begin ;)

Take care
 
Peter Jonas said:
Peter Jonas wrote:
Peter Jonas said:
I do have an idea, but indeed it may be incorrect. How do you know what Nikon's process for pixel mapping is?
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The Pixel Fixer FAQs also talk about how hot pixels are remapped.

The Nikon service manuals have been linked to on DPreview and discussed in the past. Beyond that I've read that it is a quick process by others who have had it done while they wait in other countries. No I didn't keep the link to the couple of articles where I saw this. No I can't be sure they're not lying. But considering that it can be done by other manufactuers in camera, it's very plausible. I have no reason to suspect that Nikon are technically incompetent, even if I don't like some of their QC and customer service. They clearly can produce complex equipment without overcomplicating things.


--

Sammy.
My forum postings reflect my own opinions and not those of my employer. I'm not employed in the photo business.
 
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Sammy Yousef said:
Sammy Yousef wrote:.

... You are either quite ignorant of how the pixel mapping process works, or baiting me. (If it's ignorance, you should stick to speaking on topics you do understand).
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If you think I do not know, then I would be interested to find it our from you. In that case we could have had a discussion. But rather than doing that, you chose to give me a lesson about what topics I should stick to speaking on. So much for me being rude ...

But it looks like of the two of us I am not the only one who does not know what's involved with Nikon's pixel mapping process. Accordingly, you should also stick to speaking of topics you do understand. You may know how FixelFixer works, but apparently have not much of an idea what the Nikon pixel mapping process involves:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/51036545

And if you think that some of those items you do not need or want, that is unfortunately not a reasonable argument as Nikon have very sound reasons for the inclusion of every one of those processes. It would be unreasonable to expect them to make an exception for you exposing themselves to various potential disputes therefter.

I have no issue with you for suggesting a user operable remapping feature would be useful. I agree it would be.

But your claim that "Nikon really have ZERO interest in customer service" based on their communication with you, and because they charge a fee of between $100 and $150 for the remaipping service I find totally unreasonable, way over the top in fact downright outragous.

In my opinion their reply to you was evidence of good customer service, and the quoted fee range was not unreasonable.

I am not trying to convince you otherwise. I have presented to you my view on the matter, most of which you chose to ignore.

Life is all about making choices...
 
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Again. I just want my camera's pixels mapped. I do not want any other kind of service. I do not want to rip any technicians or Nikon off by forcing them to undercharge. I want what has been available on many digital cameras for about a decade now. I won't get it on my D90. If enough people complain, and if enough people stop justifying this utterly wasteful and inefficient system for fixing a common and persistent problem, maybe one day soon we'll get it. We didn't have automatic sensor cleaning a decade ago, and we have hot pixel in camera remapping on the Nikon 1.

All of these straw men, and the fault economic justification for price gouging are just nonsense. Nikon is able to provide sensor cleaning for $66 but must charge $100-$150 to remap pixels using software. It makes no sense. It is not a good business model. It will not withstand competition in the medium to long term. Especially so since Nikon has chosen to no longer supply 3rd party repairers with parts, and is swamped. I haven't seen these issues addressed. All I've seen is a bunch of people who want to whine about my whining, and complain about how much better an email they could write than I. Perhaps in their world, they should be offering a $600/hr service to re-write all my emails for me in a more polished way.


Many much more business savvy people than I have managed to drive a company into the ground by failing to apply common sense, deal with reality, and quit being greedy when it was doing more harm than good.
 
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