From the evidence of your mails, Doors readers are clearly hacked off with the way digital gizmos are developed, hyped, sold and supported. Here, however, is where the industry fightback begins. Be prepared, you fickle consumers, to shoulder much of the blame for the imperfect — dare we say, malfunctioning — world of technology.
Many readers complain that gadgets and computers break down after an indecently short period; many also feel that once the product has been sold, manufacturers don’t want to know. Is it unreasonable to expect better build, backed by standard three-year warranties and comprehensive customer support?
Doors turned to the Professional Computing Association, a trade body representing 400 firms, from component manufacturers to computer resellers. Its executive director, Keith Warburton, was far from apologetic, saying: “What people forget is that we are getting a huge amount of technology for our money, yet we don’t expect to have to exert ourselves to find out how these things work. The desktop computer is much more user-friendly and reliable than it used to be — manufacturers say that 95% of kit never has any problems at all. When problems do arise, it’s often to do with software, or it’s the user’s own fault.”
Yet, if computers and peripherals are so reliable, why don’t manufacturers offer warranties of longer than a year as standard? “To cover the problematic 5% of machines, prices would have to rise by about 10%,” Warburton says. “We could never make three-year warranties mandatory, so it would become a competition issue. Consumers are still too price- sensitive: they stop thinking and go for the cheapest.”
In other words, are we given the technology we deserve because we are dumb, lazy consumers with naively high expectations and a destructive fixation on the lowest possible price? This accusation is reinforced, perhaps less bluntly, by the retailers.
Simon Fox, managing director of the electrical retailer Comet, says: “The customer wants cheap electrical goods, so there is substantial deflation in consumer electricals. But at the price these products sell for, manufacturers cannot afford to offer more than a one-year warranty. Replacing parts and getting engineers to repair goods is expensive. If you want complete peace of mind, you have to pay extra for an extended warranty, yet people aren’t always prepared to do this.”
Dell, the world’s largest computer supplier, agrees: “In certain price bands, most consumers prefer a cheaper acquisition cost and/or more features at a given price, and a lower-standard service offering. We provide the option to upgrade to a three-year service warranty. If consumer demand changes, then obviously we will react.”
Some readers also believe that our obsession with finding the lowest prices, particularly at price-comparison websites, exacerbates these problems, especially that of poor build quality.
Mark Guymer, UK general manager of Shopping.com, one of the largest price-comparison services, says: “When we started out in 2000, it was all about price, but over the years consumers have looked for more sophisticated indicators of quality, such as online- retailer trustworthiness, reliability and customer service.
“Our ‘Epinions’ reviews increasingly look at the build quality of products as well. Consumers are growing used to having more information, which helps them make better purchasing decisions.”
Larger traditional electrical retailers remain torn between their online and offline pricing; consumers often have to demand these savings in store or leave empty-handed to order from the firm’s own website. A crazy situation.
Guymer believes that online retailers who cannot compete on price alone are having to improve their customer service instead. For example, UK Digital Cameras now offers a free two-year warranty on all its digital cameras. “Business has grown 2Å times over the past year or so as a result,” Guymer says, so clearly consumer appetite is creating a trend.
In a delicious irony, Comet’s Simon Fox believes it is the price-transparent web that is forcing high-street retailers to improve the quality of their customer service — which is another cause of complaint among consumers. “We have to offer something that the internet can’t, and that tends to be good advice,” he says.
Fox admits that the retail industry has often failed in its role as a consumer adviser. “In the past 18 months, we have spent millions training our staff to identify the customer need better. Retailing should not be about just selling the latest gizmos, but guiding people through this confusing world.” Time will tell whether this training actually helps.
Hamish Thompson, head of media relations for DSG International, the group that owns Dixons, Currys, PC World, The Link and PC City, stonewalls with a predictable response to reported failings. “We are improving our literature, our websites and our display materials in store. We also have the best technical helplines in the business,” he claims. “We offer specialist repair centres, advice and support clinics in all PC World stores. Further detailed technical support is also available via our customer- service agreements.”
In case you were wondering, customer- service agreement is the cuddly new phrase for the infamously expensive and oversold extended warranty. Thompson denies that DSG staff oversell them, saying: “Our staff are trained to promote our service agreements appropriately and, contrary to popular belief, they receive no commission. The advantage of our agreements is that they offer unlimited repairs and cover against accidental damage, a major source of claims. And, if we can’t repair, we’ll replace for no additional charge. We think that represents outstanding value.”
The jury is still out on the usefulness or otherwise of extended warranties. The PCA believes that most computer kit is so reliable these days, we don’t really need them. Electrical retailers believe they offer us “peace of mind”. The Office of Fair Trading believes we should shop around among independent warranty providers, rather than relying on expensive in-store versions. The choice appears to be: pay through the nose at the point of purchase for an extended warranty, or pay through the nose later for repairs when things break down.
The message coming from the manufacturers and retailers is that we will have to pay extra for our technology to remain working. The most common problems are hardware reliability and, more often, software-related incompatibility. Any week now, another format war is about to break out, one that will make the ancient battle between Betamax and VHS cassette recorders seem small beer. This time, it’s between the makers of high-definition DVDs. Sony’s new format is called Blu-ray, while HD-DVD is an update to the existing DVD standard that is endorsed by the DVD Forum and championed, though not wholly owned, by Toshiba.
Nicolas Babin, director of corporate communications for Sony Europe and spokesman for the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), says: “Sony invented Blu-ray in 2002-03 because we needed a storage medium for high-definition television. Toshiba decided to adopt its own format. We did meet the other camp in 2004 to try to reach a consensus, but the two technologies are so fundamentally different that there was no common ground.” By contrast, Pioneer, a member of the BDA, told Doors that the barriers to one high-definition DVD standard being agreed were largely commercial, not technical. Merging, at such a late stage, would be so expensive that universal players and two disc formats are the most likely outcome.
Another common complaint is that there is now far too much choice. As an example, the Finnish mobile-phone manufacturer Nokia last year launched a jaw-dropping total of 42 handsets. What can justify such a splurge of new models? Mark Squires, head of communications for Nokia UK, says: “Our demographics are wide these days. We have a lot of different customers and we respond to their needs. Some want their phones to play MP3s and have high-megapixel cameras; others want them just to make calls. We make phones to suit all our customers, never forgetting that the mobile’s killer application is still speech.”
Squires admits that mobiles, once considered high-tech speciality products for geeks, are now disposable fashion items for all. Isn’t this trend contributing to the throwaway society, with detrimental environmental consequences? “All our phones come with two-year warranties as standard,” Squires says, “and we will service phones for seven years after purchase. We also offer a free recycling scheme. The problem is that if a mobile-phone network fully subsidises a £200 or £300 handset, customers are shocked by a £150 repair bill and throw it away instead, not considering the phone’s true cost.”
Before customers choose a phone, Squires advises, they should make a list of the functions they want it to perform, then find a model to suit, and ignore the dictates of fashion — a bit rich coming from a company that has pioneered so-called fashion phones.
“Our 1100-series phones just make calls, and the advantage of a simple phone is that the battery lasts longer,” Squires says. So, is our love of novelty and feature-packed gadgets partly to blame for the constant launch of new models? DSG’s Thompson says: “We’re not in the business of encouraging customers to buy things that they don’t really need, but what we do find is that customers will often choose to buy feature-rich models when side by side with the equivalent lower-specification model.
“Our job is to give advice to customers about the features and benefits of the various products available, and to match this advice to their needs, but ultimately the choice belongs to the customer — which is how it should be.”
