Panasonic PT50lc13 crap TV update.
Well, I thought the story of this consumer nightmare with my Panasonic P50lc13 TV from Circuit City was over, but apparently not. I just got a call from Thomas Williams of Circuit City’s City Advantage program. Thomas said he wanted to know how things were going with my TV, so I told him, explaining how City Advantage was unable to provide me with documentation for the set’s chronic failures, which screwed me out of the remedy for a replacement TV from Panasonic’s class action suit as administered by the robots at tvlampsettlement.
What was Thomas’s reaction to this? Did he offer to find the stacks of paperwork that would satisfy the class action administrators? No, he offered to sell me an extension of my warranty — $251 for one year and $354 for two.
I explained that not only was I not going to extend my warranty, but that we would never again be customers of either Panasonic or Circuit City. He said the warranty included a replacement guarantee if they couldn’t fix the set. How many times do they have to fix it before they determine it needs replacing? I mean, I’m up to around five already.
Now, in an organization that give a crap about their customers and wasn’t rendered useless by its own bureaucracy, Thomas would pass this nightmare story up the chain of command and ideally, someone would act on it (assuming pissing off customers isn’t a primary company goal.) But I doubt that will happen with City Advantage or Panasonic, based on past performance.
A few years ago I had a consumer beef with Delta Air Lines. They didn’t credit me sky miles because I’d booked under my familiar name and not my formal name. Phone calls yielded no results, but someone at Delta was smart enough to monitor their reputation on the web, found my issue, and solved it. I was stunned. It didn’t just eliminate a lingering of suspicion of Delta, but it actually transformed it into a positive bias.
Too many companies just don’t understand the relationship with their customers, but those numbers will thin.
Addendum: I’m investigating court.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:24 pm
If it makes you feel any better, you’ve taught me a valuable lesson. When my TV dies and I need to replace it, I won’t be going anywhere near Panasonic or Circuit City.
Yeah, you’re right. That really won’t make you feel any better.
February 1st, 2008 at 12:02 am
Actually, you know, it does make me feel a little better, albeit in a macro kind of why. I’ve been watching the the social media, WOM, consumer review space (yes, I used the term “space” just to pretend like I’m sucking a latte with venture money,) and matching it against my personal experiences as a consumer, several of which have been nightmares lately. Here’s what’s dawned on me: If there’s any mass power we have as citizens, it’s as consumers. Institutionally I’m beginning to think its our sole purpose.
Too much money and effort to harness word-of-mouth, exploit social networks (I’m talkin’ to you, Facebook Beacon) and generally build buzz are designed only to encourage the only the positive. That’s fine, but more urgently we need help warning each other about the bad stuff. Obviously that protects us as consumers, but I think there’s a far broader benefit. Every dollar not spent on with companies who don’t give a crap about their responsibilities to consumers or the quality of what they do is a dollar that can go to companies who do. Yes, this is the natural evolution of the marketplace, but I think now is the time to hasten the process with collective information. Yelp comes close, and some other sites, but I think it can be even better and simpler. Actually, I’m kind of excited by the possibilities, so yes, I really am glad to hear that my experience with Circuit City and Panasonic factors into your decision making.
I should say that I really want to like Panasonic. As I posted earlier, many of my experiences with their products have been good, and I think they generally try to focus on quality and innovation. Their HVX200 and preceding DV100 vidcams are good example, judging from what I’ve read and the footage I’ve seen. I’d love to know the story of what happened with the pt50lc13 TV I bought. My guess is someone forced it to market before it was ready. Whatever the reason, they sure blew an adulthood of goodwill I’d built up toward them by 1) not recalling the thing, instead waiting for a class action suit and 2) handing the problem off to seem brain dead fulfillment dweebs who left me flapping in the breeze. As for City Advantage, there’s no excuse. I do know that no extended warranty repair person will leave my house without giving me a receipt.
Oh, that reminds me, I have a cartoon vaguely on the subject I’ll toss up in a minute.