- Posts: 61
- Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2012 6:58 pm
Hello Blackmagic community and hopefully someone at Blackmagic.
I purchased one of the first Pocket 4K cameras in Toronto, and have had an absolutely horrendous customer service experience after realizing it was a defective unit. I’m posting here in the hopes that someone at Blackmagic can take action and improve how they support their products and customers. Perhaps this is just a problem within Canada, but policy needs to change. I love your products and many of the people I have met in your company, but this has to change for your future. Incidentally, a similar thing happened back when I purchased the original Cinema camera. Unfortunately I was sad to see this hasn’t improved, and somehow has gotten worse.
Here is what led to a terrible customer experience:
- Purchase a new camera locally before the holidays. Unfortunately, after using it on only one job, I noticed it had quite a few dead pixels. Too many to ignore. As well as the minor battery door problem.
- I contacted support. They replied with instructions on how to demonstrate the problem. I followed up exactly as described and it was determined I need to send the camera in.
- We began the RMA process. This took two tries. Unfortunately the first time I sent it in, the customer service department somehow didn’t notice the details I filled out as they requested. Copy and pasting it and second time seemed to have worked after a bit of delay.
- Sending it back cost at least around $100 to send insured. I’m willing to swallow this, though since it was a defective unit upon receiving it, I really would think that Blackmagic would find a way to replace a defective product without additional cost to the customer.
- The process of inspecting the unit took some time, but that’s expected with the holidays involved. It arrived at Blackmagic on the first day they were back after Christmas and was returned to me on Jan 10. This is acceptable if not a bit long.
- The camera has a delivery attempt. However, for some reason to the wrong address. Despite me sending in the RMA form twice, Blackmagic used an old address I had on file for the return.
- I tried to contact Blackmagic but the support page does not list a toll free number. So I sit on hold for nearly 30 minutes on a long distance call. The receptionist attempts to forward my call several times, but it never gets answered. After falling back to the receptionist, she kindly looks into this for me and offers to pass on the information to the support department.
- We eventually find out that a new address cannot be assigned. The only alternative being to send the camera back and have it resent. I offer to instead go out and pick it up. Which took a bit of time to drive to and from the depot.
- Upon picking up the camera, I had to pay another nearly $200. It seems proper care wasn’t taken in terms of logistics to ensure the product was returned with proper documentation to show that it is a repaired item. This error is the one that’s hard to swallow. As is how it was addressed from here on out.
- I contact Blackmagic about this, and apparently hiring a shipping broker was my responsibility in order to avoid this. This is a terrible policy. Particularly under the circumstance of having been delivered a faulty product to begin with. I am not in any business that requires knowledge of corporate return/repair logistics nor do I ever have to deal with brokerage. A consumer cannot be expected to be aware of this, nor to be the one to handle this. I have dealt with many product returns in my lifetime, and this is the first time I’ve had to pay tax on an item twice. And definitely the first time anything like this was made my responsibility.
- I politely asked for assistance from Blackmagic to reimburse me for at least the cost incurred by the return. I was told that I could handle recovering this money from Fedex myself.
- I replied a second time and desired to speak to someone that could better handle a special case. Which is what leads me to this posting after other attempts have failed. I also inquired whether they were going to send me the documentation to be able to forward to FedEx. This was the extremely brief response I received: “Actually, the invoice comes with the replacement camera. You can ask FedEx.” I will leave the particular support representative out of the discussion. He likely did all he could, but regrettably ended his role in this a little too dismissively.
I would like to ask two things of Blackmagic:
- To help me out here. As well as anyone else that is having problems. I cannot imagine that every support case like this would end up costing the customer an additional $300 above what they paid for the camera. Just to receive a product that shouldn’t have been faulty in the first place.
- Please fix your repair/return support process. I’m not sure if this is just how support in Canada is handled, but either way, the policies and processes in place are not in any way friendly to the consumer. In fact, it results in a very negative customer experience.
Please note, this posting is a last straw attempt at getting help. I have no desire to air out grievances in a public forum, but I was not given another contact as I had hoped. Blackmagic is doing truly amazing product development work, but this aspect is definitely something you can improve to match your other well earned successes.
I hope no one else has to go through this. I’m more than disappointed in Blackmagic and unfortunately this is the second time I’ve had to go through this. This time with much worse results, quite a few errors in the support department, borderline flippant communication and never a polite apology for this hassle this has caused.
Marc
I purchased one of the first Pocket 4K cameras in Toronto, and have had an absolutely horrendous customer service experience after realizing it was a defective unit. I’m posting here in the hopes that someone at Blackmagic can take action and improve how they support their products and customers. Perhaps this is just a problem within Canada, but policy needs to change. I love your products and many of the people I have met in your company, but this has to change for your future. Incidentally, a similar thing happened back when I purchased the original Cinema camera. Unfortunately I was sad to see this hasn’t improved, and somehow has gotten worse.
Here is what led to a terrible customer experience:
- Purchase a new camera locally before the holidays. Unfortunately, after using it on only one job, I noticed it had quite a few dead pixels. Too many to ignore. As well as the minor battery door problem.
- I contacted support. They replied with instructions on how to demonstrate the problem. I followed up exactly as described and it was determined I need to send the camera in.
- We began the RMA process. This took two tries. Unfortunately the first time I sent it in, the customer service department somehow didn’t notice the details I filled out as they requested. Copy and pasting it and second time seemed to have worked after a bit of delay.
- Sending it back cost at least around $100 to send insured. I’m willing to swallow this, though since it was a defective unit upon receiving it, I really would think that Blackmagic would find a way to replace a defective product without additional cost to the customer.
- The process of inspecting the unit took some time, but that’s expected with the holidays involved. It arrived at Blackmagic on the first day they were back after Christmas and was returned to me on Jan 10. This is acceptable if not a bit long.
- The camera has a delivery attempt. However, for some reason to the wrong address. Despite me sending in the RMA form twice, Blackmagic used an old address I had on file for the return.
- I tried to contact Blackmagic but the support page does not list a toll free number. So I sit on hold for nearly 30 minutes on a long distance call. The receptionist attempts to forward my call several times, but it never gets answered. After falling back to the receptionist, she kindly looks into this for me and offers to pass on the information to the support department.
- We eventually find out that a new address cannot be assigned. The only alternative being to send the camera back and have it resent. I offer to instead go out and pick it up. Which took a bit of time to drive to and from the depot.
- Upon picking up the camera, I had to pay another nearly $200. It seems proper care wasn’t taken in terms of logistics to ensure the product was returned with proper documentation to show that it is a repaired item. This error is the one that’s hard to swallow. As is how it was addressed from here on out.
- I contact Blackmagic about this, and apparently hiring a shipping broker was my responsibility in order to avoid this. This is a terrible policy. Particularly under the circumstance of having been delivered a faulty product to begin with. I am not in any business that requires knowledge of corporate return/repair logistics nor do I ever have to deal with brokerage. A consumer cannot be expected to be aware of this, nor to be the one to handle this. I have dealt with many product returns in my lifetime, and this is the first time I’ve had to pay tax on an item twice. And definitely the first time anything like this was made my responsibility.
- I politely asked for assistance from Blackmagic to reimburse me for at least the cost incurred by the return. I was told that I could handle recovering this money from Fedex myself.
- I replied a second time and desired to speak to someone that could better handle a special case. Which is what leads me to this posting after other attempts have failed. I also inquired whether they were going to send me the documentation to be able to forward to FedEx. This was the extremely brief response I received: “Actually, the invoice comes with the replacement camera. You can ask FedEx.” I will leave the particular support representative out of the discussion. He likely did all he could, but regrettably ended his role in this a little too dismissively.
I would like to ask two things of Blackmagic:
- To help me out here. As well as anyone else that is having problems. I cannot imagine that every support case like this would end up costing the customer an additional $300 above what they paid for the camera. Just to receive a product that shouldn’t have been faulty in the first place.
- Please fix your repair/return support process. I’m not sure if this is just how support in Canada is handled, but either way, the policies and processes in place are not in any way friendly to the consumer. In fact, it results in a very negative customer experience.
Please note, this posting is a last straw attempt at getting help. I have no desire to air out grievances in a public forum, but I was not given another contact as I had hoped. Blackmagic is doing truly amazing product development work, but this aspect is definitely something you can improve to match your other well earned successes.
I hope no one else has to go through this. I’m more than disappointed in Blackmagic and unfortunately this is the second time I’ve had to go through this. This time with much worse results, quite a few errors in the support department, borderline flippant communication and never a polite apology for this hassle this has caused.
Marc