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XBox Defects Draw Ire
jeffy124 writes: "An article at CNN indicates that the XBox is having problems with defects. But the defects aren't the problem, the issue is lousy customer support from Microsoft's repair contractors, which is really what's more annoying to those who got defective units. Customer support has been giving out conflicting advice and some customers are having their support records lost."
My best friends XBOX died last week. He's already received a replacement. I'd say it took about two days.
:)
My XBOX has been working flawlessly though.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
The stakes are high for Microsoft, which shipped about 1.5 million Xboxes over the holidays.
And then in a later paragraph...
Microsoft sales and marketing director John O'Rourke said fewer than 1 percent of the consoles have proven faulty.
Thats a hell of a lot (15,000) of people with faulty Christmas presents really. I'm surprised there hasnt been more publicity than this if that many are faulty.
Have any slashdotters reading this actually had any experience with faulty XBoxes?
Consoles are sold at a loss, and the XBox is sold at more of a loss than any other console. Notice the business reviews of the XBox saying that Microsoft will lose several billion dollars and require over three years to turn a profit?
Console companies make their money on the software, and it will take quite a bit of software to make up the cost.
I'm sure that Microsoft knows what they are doing, though. They may not know how to design or impliment decent software. but nobody can argue that they know business.
The XBox, if you follow news on Microsoft, is to get their foot in the door of home electronics. The X-Box combined with Ultimate TV (Microsofts innovative clone of Tivo) can potentially allow Microsoft to eventually control advertising on your TV, track everything you watch, and conceivably eventually allow Microsoft to influence what is actually shown on television.
Compaq has a new business service called "Zero latency enterprise" which allows a company to look up your purchase history in less than one second. With an Xbox/UTV combo and a capability like this, Microsoft could display the absolute most effective ads for you and collect royalties from advertisers and networks.
Okay, enough conspiracy theories.
When Microsoft rules the world, I'm moving.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
I bought a PS2 for this Christmas, and somehow ended up with a *very* early revision system. Within a week, it had stopped playing any widescreen DVDs; I suppose we tickled a bug somewhere. I tried updating to no avail.
So I went back to the store and exchanged it for another unit, this time a more recent revision. Problem solved.
My point is if it fails to work because of a defect, why bother calling any kind of customer service? Return the unit to the vendor. This drops it back in the manufacturer's lap, and you don't end up being hassled. That's why God created return policies.
And if you bought it from a place that won't accept returns on defective merchandise, I can only say: Caveat emptor, mon ami.
-- Cerebus
Well, it depends on where you go. I work at an FYE (aka Saturday Matinee, The Wall, Record Town... same company and I've worked for them all) where the official policy is that any hardware issues with game systems is the responsibility of the manufacturer and not ours. This is understandable as the margins on game systems are next to nothing and its not worth more losses in terms of time and effort excluding the fact that the company probably is reimbursed for defective merchandise. Now that's not to say that we don't always refuse a return, pretty much that depends on the manager on duty and the circumstances.
Also, on a completely side and off-topic note... I just found out that FYE's parent company TWEC just signed a major deal with MSN to become its provider of music and movies location. Also we will be getting a number of kiosks for previewing movies and music on, each one running XP... shoot me now, please. So now I am part of the evil empire. I can use a Mac, refuse to fix my roommates horrible Compaq, but MS will find some way to get you. *sigh*
forma3
M$ has been outsourcing most of the customer service for it's Xbox... The article if you read it...states this... "Microsoft uses outside companies, including Harte-Hanks of San Antonio, Texas, and Sykes Enterprises in Tampa, Florida, to handle Xbox customer service. Xbox repairs are handled by Solectron of Milpitas, California."
"Look where we worship" -- Jim Morrison
How would a company that makes crappy software be expected to produce quality hardware?
I fail to see the correlation between the two entirely different beasts.
Microsoft hardware is actually known for being some of the best around (mice, keyboards, joysticks). The RMA rate quoted in the article is around 1% which is definitely in line with the acceptable rate (would you rather buy a MS Intellimouse Explorer or an IBM Deskstar HDD?)
The whole issue in the article is the poor (outsourced) customer support. The only thing they seem to have done wrong here is pick lousy companies to offer support for their product.
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I didn't want to leave this space blank.
"..after all they've been making TOYS for years!"
The X-Box is made by Flextronics, not Microsoft, if that's what you were suggesting.
"Well my initial response was yeah microsoft sucks, good for them for making crappy hardware."
Of course Microsoft doesn't even make the XBOX. Flextronics does.
It is badly made and franky, it shows. I think it was outsourced in Mexico and to be honest, Mexico is not the center the of world as far as high quality standards go.
There was an article in Wired a few months ago about Flextronic (I think)--the company that does the actual building of the Xbox. These guys are all about quality. The people working in their plant are not the same quality of people putting together your VW. Don't get images of Juan Valdex\z in a sombrero putting PIIIs into Xboxes burned into your retinas. They employ skilled labor. Flextronic is all about maximizing value. If they can build a plant in Mexico and hire the same caliber of workers for less money and get the same quality, they're going to build the plant in Mexico. The Xbox isn't their only product either.
Go to the library and look back a few months in Wired. It was the cover article.
--Mike
Outsourcing houses can shrink like crazy, even if one or two projects within the company are growing explosively. At the moment, pretty much everybody in that business is shrinking, mostly because of a shrinking number of clients and new endeavors to replace the businesses that went bust over the past 18 months. Xbox is probably one of a very few bright stars on Sykes' horizon. The Xbox project is probably benefiting from the shrinkage in other projects (all their best people will be xferred to xbox instead of getting canned).
It works like this: If you have clients, you fill as many seats as your client will pay for, you cannot lose money on that. If your client wants X number of people on the phone, you put them there, or your contract will bite you in the ass.
If you still must shave staff, you take them from middle management, not people your client pays you for. The guys on the phone are "revenue-producing." The supervisors and the managers are "non-revenue producing."
One thing that's certainly happening right now is that none of their support staff is experienced. How can they be? The things just started rolling off the lines a few weeks ago, when their staffers were out looking for work. Since we are talking about outsourcing here, we are not talking about highly-paid technical staff. Usually a client will specify a minimum rate of pay for new hires, and I guarantee it's no more than $12 an hour, possibly as low as $8. There's a fair number of bright, technically-adept people who will work for that pay, but the vast majority of applicants are not those people! Guess who gets hired? Well, if a project has a tight deadline, everybody,, because if the seats aren't filled to the client's quota when the date arrives, you lose big. The real incompetents, the ones who make you scream and tear your hair out when you get 'em on the phone, tend to weed themselves out over time.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
"As the article even states, this is in line with the industry average, even compared to Nintendo who has more console building experience than anyone else in the market hands-down."
They said the defective number of units is the norm. They didn't say that the lousy customer experience was. I've talked to Nintendo customer support several times over the years about various things, and have yet to have anything but a downright pleasurable experience. I've even e-mailed Sony once about their PS2 before I bought one and they actually CALLED me to answer my question. I can't say that my experiences with Microsoft support have been quite so rosy.
"Is it so surprising that the new player on this market might have a few snags with third-party customer service companies?"
As the article points out, this console market is possibly as competitive as it has ever been. They will receive zero mercy from Nintendo and Sony (remember, business is war). If this is a sign that Microsoft doesn't have all it's ducks in a row, then they're going to get left in the dust in a bad way. Investors might want to know about this as well as consumers.
"Just because it's Microsoft doesn't mean their problems with third party CS companies equate to a poor product or a general neglect of their customers. This molehill is not that mountain."
On the other hand, just because they're Microsoft means that they should have problems with customer support. While they may be new to the console wars, customer support is something they're supposed to have been doing since the mid 80's.
How did this get moderated to a 5? It isn't true. The post that points out this was an AP story and not a CNN one hasn't been driven up there yet. Well, CNN is down, so here's the original. It'll make a decent mirror: http://wire.ap.org/APnews/main.html?PACKAGEID=BIZm icrosoft1&SLUG=XBOX%2dWOES