Why CPS and NPS?

These so-called professional service "clubs" bug me.

Canon and Nikon are selling professional equipment at professional prices. Why do you still have to join their exclusive clubs to get treated with any priority? I don't like it. Either sell and support professional equipment or move over for someone that will.

What if Boeing told its smaller customers they had to join "Boeing big-fancy airlines services" to get support. "Sorry can't help you fly your mega-buck plane today, you forgot to FAX in your enrollment form. Tell the passengers to wait a week."

What do you get for joining? Faster repairs (not guaranteed), loans (only when available, and loaners can perform poorly and ruin your shoot). If you want 100% assurance you will make all of your assignments, you still have to buy backup equipment.

Steve Bruhn said:

These so-called professional service "clubs" bug me.

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Why shouldn't they treat bigger customers differently. Can you imagine a 300d owner off the street walking into the CPS stand at the Australian Grand Prix and holding up battery charging services for the pros covering it?

The equipment requirements for both CPS & NPS are reasonably easy to meet. for CPS it is only 3 bodies (2 professional ones) and 2 or 3 decent lenses.

It is a free service, so either use it or don't. I always use CPS for product evaluation, and will be doing so to decide on the 17-40 vs 16-35 when my 1d2 arrives.

Rental rates are the cheapest anywhere, I don't need a 600/4 often but when I do it is very good to rent one at a good price.

Steve Bruhn said:

Canon and Nikon are selling professional equipment at professional
prices. Why do you still have to join their exclusive clubs to get
treated with any priority? I don't like it. Either sell and
support professional equipment or move over for someone that will.

What if Boeing told its smaller customers they had to join "Boeing
big-fancy airlines services" to get support. "Sorry can't help you
fly your mega-buck plane today, you forgot to FAX in your
enrollment form. Tell the passengers to wait a week."

What do you get for joining? Faster repairs (not guaranteed),
loans (only when available, and loaners can perform poorly and ruin
your shoot). If you want 100% assurance you will make all of your
assignments, you still have to buy backup equipment.

Click to expand...

--
http://www.markmiller.com.au

Steve Bruhn said:

These so-called professional service "clubs" bug me.

Click to expand...

.... I’ve told this story before so briefly:

1D needed attention, CPS not recognised in Ireland: Camera to go back to dealer in Cork: Dealer in Cork gives to Canon rep as the rep calls around: Rep on holidays no rep for a month: Canon Dublin insist that CPS means nothing will do nothing for me and insist I send the camera to my dealer: Estimated minimum six weeks:

The procedure is thus: rep calls around on his routine visits and collects orders and repairs and delivers any repairs he has that are coming back. He proceeds around Ireland and eventually arrives back in Dublin who then stores ALL repairs until they have a ‘bin full’ and ship the lot to the Canon UK.

Sounds riveting, does it not?

I was fuming, protested to Canon Europe and got a lovely email from the Canon UK repair facility to send the camera directly to them instead of this other rigmarole.

Upshot: camera on a plane Monday, with Canon 8am the following morning and back in Cork the following Friday (weekend meant the facility was secure so I had to wait until Monday, but I could have picked it up myself on Friday if I had known).

So I certainly cannot complain even if the full CPS services are not available to me. This quick turnaround is worth the price of admission alone.

The monthly mag is nice too.

I have spent enough with Nikon and Canon both to join many times over.

My point is they are selling professional equipment at a professional price. They need to support all professional equipment they sell, not just to elites.

It's fine that you get to use it to test stuff before buying. Maybe they should just have a loan program.

It just bugs me that if I don't like their program, I have to listen to "are you a member? Well if not your return date is a week later.." when I take something in. My guess if someone really had an issue with it (not me, I'm just talk), they could challenge the whole thing and shoot it down for not warrantying things consistently.

They should do that without requiring you joing their elite society. That is my whole point. Support all the product or get out.

Steve Bruhn said:

They should do that without requiring you joing their elite
society. That is my whole point. Support all the product or get
out.

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.... support all products, but they do except one waits six week at best to three months for repairs depending on the workload ... no sir, I like my privileges.

You might be familiar with a thread on the 10D forum some time back when Canon closed their tech support facilities entirely for two months because they were overwhelmed with 10D focus issues. Again I say no sir, I like my privileges.

I guess I did a poor job of explaining my point.

ALL professional equipment should be supported with priority. If a wanna-bee has the money to buy a 1Ds, he deserves support just like someone who owns 3 of them.

I don't include 10D and half-budget cameras as professional equipment. Those are "hobby" cameras.

Of course you enjoy privledges. I am saying if you buy a 1D or 1Ds, you have paid the price of admission. Joining a club should not be required. If they can't support all their professional equipment the same, they should increase the support.

CPS makes infinite sense to me. All you have to do is show Canon you use your tool to make money and they take care of you better. You get some priority in repairs so you get ahead of people like ME who don't use the tools for our livelyhood. What's wrong with that? As for that "everyone should get priority" stuff, that's impossible. The whole idea of priority is that you get serviced prior to others. If all professional gear were worked on at the same time the true pros would not be happy with the turn around time as it would drop.

Jason

Steve Bruhn said:

These so-called professional service "clubs" bug me.

Canon and Nikon are selling professional equipment at professional
prices. Why do you still have to join their exclusive clubs to get
treated with any priority? I don't like it. Either sell and
support professional equipment or move over for someone that will.

What if Boeing told its smaller customers they had to join "Boeing
big-fancy airlines services" to get support. "Sorry can't help you
fly your mega-buck plane today, you forgot to FAX in your
enrollment form. Tell the passengers to wait a week."

What do you get for joining? Faster repairs (not guaranteed),
loans (only when available, and loaners can perform poorly and ruin
your shoot). If you want 100% assurance you will make all of your
assignments, you still have to buy backup equipment.

Click to expand...

Steve Bruhn said:

ALL professional equipment should be supported with priority. If a
wanna-bee has the money to buy a 1Ds, he deserves support just like
someone who owns 3 of them.

Click to expand...

Where I work we treat 100-license customers way different from those purchasing single licenses. We provide great support for them both, but the priority is somewhat different.

Is it different in your trade?

OTOH, if the qualifier is three Pro bodies, does that mean that someone with two 1V bodies and a 1D makes the cut? I can see how that would seem unfair, seeing as a single 1Ds costs more than those other three pro bodies.

Bottom line though seems to be that Canon want to take care of their professional users. Since a pro is likely to aquire a backup (or two :-> ), the qualifier makes sense.

--
Rune, http://runesbike.com/

Jason Hutchinson said:

Steve Bruhn said:

These so-called professional service "clubs" bug me.

Canon and Nikon are selling professional equipment at professional
prices. Why do you still have to join their exclusive clubs to get
treated with any priority? I don't like it. Either sell and
support professional equipment or move over for someone that will.

What if Boeing told its smaller customers they had to join "Boeing
big-fancy airlines services" to get support. "Sorry can't help you
fly your mega-buck plane today, you forgot to FAX in your
enrollment form. Tell the passengers to wait a week."

What do you get for joining? Faster repairs (not guaranteed),
loans (only when available, and loaners can perform poorly and ruin
your shoot). If you want 100% assurance you will make all of your
assignments, you still have to buy backup equipment.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

And if I want to view the images on motonews.com (your site I believe), I have to "subscribe"?? I'm not seeing a lot of difference......
Glass houses and stones, methinks.

--
KenC

Actually it is only 2 bodies and 3 or more L (or specialty) lenses required for CPS eligibility.

MarkMiller said:

The equipment requirements for both CPS & NPS are reasonably easy
to meet. for CPS it is only 3 bodies (2 professional ones) and 2 or
3 decent lenses.

Click to expand...

.... nice answer, did not notice this myself. But it for the original poster isn’t it?

Oh yes, just put it in the wrong place........oops!

Still smarting from your lot humping us last weekend. I suppose someone's got to take the wooden spoon....

Ger Bee said:

.... nice answer, did not notice this myself. But it for the
original poster isn’t it?

Click to expand...

--
KenC

.... nt .. )

Steve Bruhn said:

These so-called professional service "clubs" bug me.

Click to expand...

--

It is not a 'club' as you so scathingly put it but a service to those who use the equipment to earn a living.

If you don't want to join, fine (I'm assuming that you fulfill the entry requirements) but then why whinge about it?

Why can't I access your site for free; is it because I'm not a member of YOUR club by any chance?
Paul