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How Not
to Build a Customer Relationship
By Michael Alan Hamlin
November 26, 2001
First off, my apologies about last week's column. I
know it was impossible to understand. That's at least party because
the last third didn't make it to print, since there wasn't enough
space. My editor and I have solved the problem, we think: shorter
columns. In the meantime, if you'd like to read the column, go to
www.teamasia.com.ph and click on "media."
Now, on to this week's business.
I've been a great lover of Sony products for years.
I've got a nice big flat-screen TV, a couple of DVD players, and
a home entertainment center that practically blasts us out of our
seats. And that's not all. There's a small component stereo in the
dining room to help set the mood for meals. I have a digital video
camera. And I've got a shiny, fairly new S70 digital still camera.
Both of the cameras plug directly into my Sony Vaio laptop, and
I do interviews and keep track of my schedule out of the office
using my Sony Clie PDA.
But the love has turned sour recently. The first warning
sign was when I bought an earlier component stereo since replaced
by the one in our dining room. Sony, in my mind, has always been
synonymous will leading edge product design and development, and
quality. So my wife and I were mighty surprised when the stereo
suddenly stopped working the day after we plugged it in.
We were event more surprised when after a month in
the shop we were told that it couldn't be repaired, there was no
replacement available, and we could either have our money back or
upgrade to another stereo. While irritating, I considered the episode
a fluke, and eventually bought a more expensive, although not quite
as good in my opinion, stereo component. That's the one in the dining
room.
Other irritating episodes were to follow, although
not involving the stereo. When I bought my Vaio notebook about this
time last year, I also bought a Sony Clie PDA. I opted for the PDA
mostly because of the Sony name, although I had been tempted to
buy a Compaq iPaq (Notice how everyone has to create these weird
product names these days?), but since I was getting a Sony notebook,
I got a Sony Clie, too.
Within a month, the Clie stopped synching with my PC,
so it got sent off like the original component stereo. I wondered
if I'd ever see it again, and what kind of deal I'd be offered this
time. But it came back in about a week with a new operating system,
and an explanation that a bug had caused the Clie to go on the blink.
I was relieved. The PDA had quickly become a great asset because
I could take notes and transfer them directly to the computer. No
more flipping through pages of notes looking for a quote.
But when I tried to synch the Clie with my PC, I still
had problems. For some reason, the Clie had somehow been altered
so that it didn't connect well to the hot synch cradle. Perhaps
the Clie or the cradle had been damaged going back and forth. I
don't know, but I wasn't sending it back again. So these days I
romance the Clie into the cradle until I get a hot connection, and
then synch. It's a bother. But I'm dependent on the Clie (until
I break down and buy that iPaq).
The Clie caused other frustrations, too. For example,
I don't like carrying the cradle around when traveling, but if I
don't I can't charge or synch. On the Sony Clie website, a travel
kit is offered. I tried to buy that travel kit in Asia for a year,
but couldn't find it. Two weeks ago in Hong Kong, I finally found
a travel kit for the Clie, but it isn't made by Sony. It's a third-party
product. That's fine, except I've had to wait a year, and Sony made
a promise - the offer of a travel kit - it didn't keep.
But my relationship with Sony really hit the rocks
last week, and once again the Clie was involved. Like a lot of people,
I've upgrade my PC recently to a Pentium 4 running the new Windows
XP operating system, and I'm using the new Office XP suite of office
productivity programs (In the interest of full disclosure, Microsoft
is a client of mine.), which has a lot of new, nifty features I
like. Upgrading to XP required that I download a new "for XP"
driver for some of my peripherals, and this went pretty well until
I got to the Clie, and there was nothing on the Sony website about
XP.
So I wrote a note, and Sony wrote me back, immediately,
telling me that I could expect no support for my Clie. Same for
the Vaio notebook. Fortunately with XP I have a choice of booting
on XP or Windows 98, so when I need to synch with the Clie, I run
98. And every time I do, I think about why that's necessary, and
my heartbreak over the collapse of my long relationship with Sony
replays itself.
The bottom line? I'll never buy another Sony notebook
or PDA again.
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing director of consultancy
TeamAsia and the author of three books on Asian economies and companies.
His latest book is Marketing Asian Places, of which he is
a co-author (Wiley, 2001).)
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